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THE QUAKER COLONIES 



ROOSEVELT EDITION 

VOLUME 8 

THE CHRONICLES 

OF AMERICA SERIES 

ALLEN JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD R. LOMER 

CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT EDITORS 




WILLIAM PENN IN TREATY WITH THE LNDL\Nb, 1683 
From the painting by C. W. Jefferys 



THE QUAKER COLONIES 

A CHROMCLE OF THE 

PROPRIETORS OF THE Delaware 

BY SYDNEY G. FISHER 



LVXET 




NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1921 



c 



-±^1 29 



Copt/right, 1919, hy Yale University Press 



JUN -2 1922 



©CI.A66t906 



:ONTENTS 



I. THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA Page 

II. PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE 

III. LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 

IV. TYPES OF THE POPULATION 

V. THE TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS " 

VI. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

VII. THE DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERN- 
MENT 

VIII. THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 

IX. PLANTERS AND TRADERS OF SOUTHERN 
JERSEY 

X. SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 
IN EAST JERSEY 

XL THE UNITED JERSEYS 

XII. LITTLE DELAWARE 

XIII. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

INDEX 



1 

17 

25 
36 
63 



108 
125 

153 

168 
180 
197 
215 
231 
235 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

WILLIAM PENN IN TREATY WITH 
THE INDIANS, 1683 

From the painting by C, W. Jefferys. Frontispiece 

THE DELAWARE RIVER REGION, 

1665-1774 

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- 
graphical Society. Facing page SJi. 



IX 



/^ 



THE QUAKER COLONIES 



CHAPTER I 

THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 

In 1661, the year after Charles II was restored to 
the throne of England, William Penn was a seven- 
teen-year-old student at Christ Church, Oxford. 
His father, a distinguished admiral in high favor 
at Court, had abandoned his erstwhile friends and 
had aided in restoring King Charlie to his own 
again. Young William was associating with the 
sons of the aristocracy and was receiving an educa- 
tion which would fit him to obtain preferment at 
Court. But there was a serious vein in him, and 
while at a high church Oxford College he was 
surreptitiously attending the meetings and listen- 
ing to the preaching of the despised and outlawed 
Quakers. There he first began to hear of the plans 
of a group of Quakers to found colonies on the 



/ 



2 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Delaware in America. Forty years afterwards he 
wrote, "I had an opening of joy as to these parts 
in the year 1661 at Oxford." And with America 
and the Quakers, in spite of a brief youthful expe- 
rience as a soldier and a courtier, William Penn's 
life, as well as his fame, is indissolubly linked. 

Quakerism was one of the many religious sects 
born in the seventeenth century under the influence 
of Puritan thought. The foundation principle 
of the Reformation, the right of private judg- 
ment, the Quakers carried out to its logical con- 
clusion; but they were people whose minds had 
so long been suppressed and terrorized that, once 
free, they rushed to extremes^ They shocked 
and horrified even the most advanced Refor- 
mation sects by rejecting Baptism, the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, and all sacraments, forms, 
and ceremonies. They represented, on their best 
side, the most vigorous effort of the Reforma- 
tion to return to the spirituality and the simplic- 
ity of the early Christians. But their intense 
spirituality, pathetic often in its extreme mani- 
festations, was not wholly concerned with another 
world. Their humane ideas and philanthropic 
methods, such as the abolition of slavery, and the 
reform of prisons and of charitable institutions. 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 3 

came in time to be accepted as fundamental 
practical social principles. 

The tendencies of which Quakerism formed only 
one manifestation appeared outside of England, 
in Italy, in France, and especially in Germany. 
The fundamental Quaker idea of "quietism," as 
it was called, or peaceful, silent contemplation as 
a spiritual form of worship and as a development 
of moral consciousness, was very widespread at the 
close of the Reformation and even began to be 
practiced in the Roman Catholic Church until it 
was stopped by the Jesuits. The most extreme 
of the English Quakers, however, gave way to 
such extravagances of conduct as trembling when 
they preached (whence their name), preaching 
openly in the streets and fields — a horrible thing 
at that time — interrupting other congregations, 
and appearing naked as a sign and warning. They 
gave offense by refusing to remove their hats in 
public and by applying to all alike the words 
"thee" and "thou," a form of address hitherto 
used only to servants and inferiors. Worst of all, 
the Quakers refused to pay tithes or taxes to 
support the Church of England. As a result, the 
loathsome jails of the day were soon filled with 
these objectors, and their property melted away 



4 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

in fines. This contumacy and their street meet- 
ings, regarded at that time as riotous breaches of 
the peace, gave the Government at first a legal 
excuse to hunt them down; but as they grew in 
numbers and influence, laws were enacted to sup- 
press them. Some of them, though not the wild- 
est extremists, escaped to the colonies in Amer- 
ica. There, however, they were made welcome to 
conditions no less severe. 

The first law against the Quakers in Massachu- 
setts was passed in 1656, and between that date 
and 1660 four of the sect were hanged, one of them 
a woman, Mary Dyer. Though there were no 
other hangings, many Quakers were punished 
by whipping and banishment. In other colonies, 
notably New York, fines and banishment were not 
uncommon. Such treatment forced the Quakers, 
against the will of many of them, to seek a tract 
of land and found a colony of their own. To such 
a course there appeared no alternative, unless they 
were determined to establish their religion solely 
by martyrdom. 

About the time when the Massachusetts laws 
were enforced, the principal Quaker leader and 
organizer, George Fox (1624-1691), began to 
consider the possibility of making a settlement 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 5 

among the great forests and mountains said to lie 
north of Maryland in the region drained by the 
Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. In this region 
lay practically the only good land on the Atlantic 
seaboard not already occupied. The Puritans 
and Dutch were on the north, and there were 
Catholic and Church of England colonies on the 
south in Maryland and Virginia. The middle 
ground was unoccupied because heretofore a diffi- 
cult coast had prevented easy access by sea. Fox 
consulted Josiah Coale, a Quaker who had traveled 
in America and had seen a good deal of the Indian 
tribes, with the result that on his second visit to 
America Coale was commissioned to treat with 
the Susquehanna Indians, who were supposed to 
have rights in the desired land. In November, 
1660, Coale reported to Fox the result of his in- 
quiries: "As concerning Friends buying a piece of 
land of the Susquehanna Indians I have spoken of 
it to them and told them what thou said concern- 
ing it; but their answer was, that there is no land 
that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Bal- 
timore's liberty till they come to or near the 
Susquehanna's Fort."' Nothing could be done 

^ James Bowden's History of the Friends in America, vol. i, p. 



6 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

immediately, the letter went on to say, because 
the Indians were at war with one another, and Wil- 
liam Fuller, a Maryland Quaker, whose cooperation 
was deemed essential, was absent. 

This seems to have been the first definite move- 
ment towards a Quaker colony. Reports of it 
reached the ears of young Penn at Oxford and set 
his imagination aflame. He never forgot the pro- 
ject, for seventeen is an age when grand thoughts 
strike home. The adventurousness of the plan 
was irresistible — a home for the new faith in 
the primeval forest, far from imprisonment, tithes, 
and persecution, and to be won by effort worthy of 
a man. It was, however, a dream destined not 
to be realized for many a long year. More was 
needed than the mere consent of the Indians. In 
the meantime, however, a temporary refuge for 
the sect was found in the province of West Jersey 
on the Delaware, which two Quakers had bought 
from Lord Berkeley for the comparatively small 
sum of £1000. Of this grant William Penn be- 
came one of the trustees and thus gained his first 
experience in the business of colonizing the region 
of his youthful dreams. But there was never a 
suflBcient governmental control of West Jersey to 
make it an ideal Quaker colony. What little 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 7 

control the Quakers exercised disappeared after 
1702; and the land and situation were not all that 
could be desired. Penn, though also one of the 
owners of East Jersey, made no attempt to turn 
that region into a Quaker colony. 

Besides West Jersey the Quakers found a tem- 
porary asylum in Aquidneck, now Rhode Island. ' 
For many years the governors and magistrates 
were Quakers, and the affairs of this island colony 
were largely in their hands. Quakers were also 
prominent in the politics of North Carolina, and 
John Archdale, a Quaker, was Governor for sev- 
eral years. They formed a considerable element 
of the population in the towns of Long Island 
and Westchester County but they could not hope 
to convert these communities into real Quaker 
commonwealths . 

The experience in the Jerseys and elsewhere 
very soon proved that if there was to be a real 
Quaker colony, the British Crown must give not 
only a title to the land but a strong charter guar- 
anteeing self-government and protection of the 
Quaker faith from outside interference. But that 

^This Rhode Island colony should be distinguished from the 
settlement at Providence founded by Roger Williams with which it 
was later united. See Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies, 
p. 21, note. 



8 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the British Government would grant such valued 
privileges to a sect of schismatics which it was 
hunting down in England seemed a most unlikely 
event. Nothing but unusual influence at Court 
could bring it about, and in that quarter the 
Quakers had no influence. 

MPenn never forgot the boyhood ideal which he 
nad developed at college. For twenty years he 
led a varied life — driven from home and whipped 
by his father for consorting with the schismatics; 
sometimes in deference to his father's wishes tak- 
ing his place in the gay world at Court; even, for 
a time, becoming a soldier, and again traveling in 
France with some of the people of the Court. In 
the end, as he grew older, religious feeling com- 
pletely absorbed him. He became one of the lead- 
ing Quaker theologians, and his very earnest reli- 
gious writings fill several volumes. He became a 
preacher at the meetings and went to prison for 
his heretical doctrines and pamphlets. At last 
he found himself at the age of thirty-six with his 
father dead, and a debt due from the Crown of 
£16,000 for services which his distinguished father, 
the admiral, had rendered the Government. 

Here was the accident that brought into being 
the great Quaker colony, by a combination of 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 9 

circumstances which could hardly have happened 
twice. Young Penn was popular at Court. He 
had inherited a valuable friendship with Charles 
II and his heir, the Duke of York. This friend- 
ship rested on the solid fact that Penn's father, 
the admiral, had rendered such signal assistance 
in restoring Charles and the whole Stuart line 
to the throne. But still £16,000 or $80,000, the 
accumulation of many deferred payments, was a 
goodly sum in those days, and that the Crown 
would pay it in money, of which it had none too 
much, was unlikely. Why not therefore suggest 
paying it instead in wild land in America, of which 
the Crown had abundance.'^ That was the fruit- 
ful thought which visited Penn. Lord Berkeley 
and Lord Carteret had been given New Jersey 
because they had signally helped to restore the 
Stuart family to the throne. All the more there- 
fore should the Stuart family give a tract of land, 
and even a larger tract, to Penn, whose father had 
not only assisted the family to the throne but had 
refrained so long from pressing his just claim for 
money due. 

So the Crown, knowing little of the value of it, 
granted him the most magnificent domain of 
mountains, lakes, rivers, and forests, fertile soil. 



10 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

coal, petroleum, and iron that ever was given to 
a single proprietor. In addition to giving Penn 
the control of Delaware and, with certain other 
Quakers, that of New Jersey as well, the Crown 
placed at the disposal of the Quakers 55,000 square 
miles of most valuable, fertile territory, lacking 
only about three thousand square miles of being 
as large as England and Wales. Even when cut 
down to 45,000 square miles by a boundary dis- 
pute with Maryland, it was larger than Ireland. 
Kings themselves have possessed such dominions, 
but never before a private citizen who scorned all 
titles and belonged to a hunted sect that exalted 
peace and spiritual contemplation above all the 
wealth and power of the world. Whether the ob- 
taining of this enormous tract of the best land in 
America was due to what may be called the eternal 
thriftiness of the Quaker mind or to the intense de- 
sire of the British Government to get rid of these 
people at any cost might be hard to determine. 

Penn received his charter in 1681, and in it he 
was very careful to avoid all the mistakes of the 
Jersey proprietary grants. Instead of numerous 
proprietors, Penn was to be the sole proprietor. 
Instead of giving title to the land and remain- 
ing silent about the political government, Penn's 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 11 

charter not only gave him title to the land but a 
clearlj^ defined position as its political head, and de- 
scribed the principles of the government so clearly 
that there was little room for doubt or dispute. 

It was a decidedly feudal charter, very much like 
the one granted to Lord Baltimore fifty years 
before, and yet at the same time it secured civil 
liberty and representative government to the peo- 
ple. Penn owned all the land and the colonists 
were to be his tenants. Lie was compelled, how- 
ever, to give his people free government. The 
laws were to be made by him with the assent of 
the people or their delegates. In practice this of 
course meant that the people were to elect a legis- 
lature and Penn would have a veto, as we now call 
it, on such acts as the legislature should pass. He 
had power to appoint magistrates, judges, and 
some other officers, and to grant pardons. Though 
by the charter proprietor of the province, he usu- 
ally remained in England and appointed a deputy 
governor to exercise authority in the colony. In 
modern phrase, he controlled the executive part 
of the government and his people controlled the 
legislative part. 

Pennsylvania, besides being the largest in area 
of the proprietary colonies, was also the most 



12 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

successful, not only from the proprietor's point of 
view but also from the point of view of the in- 
habitants. The proprietorships in Maine, New 
Hampshire, New Jersey, and the Carolinas were 
largely failures. Maryland was only partially 
successful; it was not particularly remunerative 
to its owner, and the Crown deprived him of his 
control of it for twenty years. Penn, too, was de- 
prived of the control of Pennsylvania by William 
III but for only about two years. Except for 
this brief interval (1692-1694), Penn and his sons 
after him held their province down to the time 
of the American Revolution in 1776, a period of 
ninety -four years. 

A feudal proprietorship, collecting rents from 
all the people, seems to modern minds grievously 
wrong in theory, and yet it would be very difficult 
to show that it proved onerous in practice. Un- 
der it the people of Pennsylvania flourished in 
wealth, peace, and happiness. Penn won undying 
fame for the liberal principles of his feudal enter- 
prise. His expenses in England were so great and 
his quitrents always so much in arrears that he was 
seldom out of debt. But his children grew rich 
from the province. As in other provinces that 
were not feudal there were disputes between the 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 13 

people and the proprietors; but there was not so 
much general dissatisfaction as might have been 
expected. The proprietors were on the whole 
not altogether disliked. In the American Revo- 
lution, when the people could have confiscated 
everything in Pennsylvania belonging to the pro- 
prietary family, they not only left them in posses- 
sion of a large part of their land, but paid them 
handsomely for the part that was taken. 

After Penn had secured his charter in 1681, he 
obtained from the Duke of York the land now in- 
cluded in the State of Delaware. He advertised 
for colonists, and began selling land at £100 for 
five thousand acres and annually thereafter a 
shilling quitrent for every hundred acres. He 
drew up a constitution or frame of government, 
as he called it, after wide and earnest consultation 
with many, including the famous Algernon Sydney. 
Among the Penn papers in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania is a collection of about twenty 
preliminary drafts. Beginning with one which 
created a government by a landed aristocracy, 
they became more and more liberal, until in the 
end his frame was very much like the most liberal 
government of the other English colonies in Amer- 
ica. He had a council and an assembly, both 



14 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

elected by the people. The council, however, was 
very large, had seventy-two members, and was 
more like an upper house of the Legislature than 
the usual colonial governor's council. The coun- 
cil also had the sole right of proposing legisla- 
tion, and the assembly could merely accept or 
reject its proposals. This was a new idea, and 
it worked so badly in practice that in the end 
the province went to the opposite extreme and 
had no council or upper house of the Legislature 
at all. 

Penn's frame of government contained, however, 
a provision for its own amendment. This was a 
new idea and proved to be so happy that it is now 
found in all American constitutions. His method 
of impeachment by which the lower house was to 
bring in the charge and the upper house was to 
try it has also been universally adopted. His view 
that an unconstitutional law is void was a step 
towards our modern system. The next step, giv- 
ing the courts power to declare a law unconstitu- 
tional, was not taken until one hundred years 
after his time. With the advice and assistance 
of some of those who were going out to his colony 
he prepared a code of laws which contained many 
of the advanced ideas of the Quakers. Capital 



THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 15 

punishment was to be confined to murder and 
treason, instead of being applied as in Eng- 
land to a host of minor offenses. The property 
of murderers, instead of being forfeited to the 
State, was to be divided among the next of 
kin of the victim and of the criminal. Religious 
liberty was established as it had been in Rhode 
Island and the Jerseys. All children were to be 
taught a useful trade. Oaths in judicial pro- 
ceedings were not required. All prisons were 
to be workhouses and places of reformation in- 
stead of dungeons of dirt, idleness, and disease. 
This attempt to improve the prisons inaugurated 
a movement of great importance in the modern 
world in which the part played by the Quakers is 
too often forgotten. 

Penn had now started his "Holy Experiment," 
as he called his enterprise in Pennsylvania, by 
which he intended to prove that religious liberty 
was not only right, but that agriculture, com- 
merce, and all arts and refinements of life would 
flourish under it. He would break the delusion 
that prosperity and morals were possible only 
under some one particular faith established by law. 
He would prove that government could be car- 
ried on without war and without oaths, and 



16 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

that primitive Christianity could be maintained 
without a hireling ministry, without persecution, 
without ridiculous dogmas or ritual, sustained only 
by its own innate power and the inward light. 



CHAPTER II 

PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE 

The framing of the constitution and other prep- 
arations consumed the year following Penn's re- 
ceipt of his charter in 1681. But at last, on August 
30, 1682, he set sail in the ship Welcome, with 
about a hundred colonists. After a voyage of 
about six weeks, and the loss of thirty of their 
number by smallpox, they arrived in the Delaware. 
June would have been a somewhat better month 
in which to see the rich luxuriance of the green 
meadows and forests of this beautiful river. But 
the autumn foliage and bracing air of October 
must have been inspiring enough. The ship slowly 
beat her way for three days up the bay and river 
in the silence and romantic loneliness of its shores. 
Everything indicated richness and fertility. At 
some points the lofty trees of the primeval forest 
grew down to the water's edge. The river at 
every high tide overflowed great meadows grown 

2 17 



18 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

up in reeds and grasses and red and yellow flowers, 
stretching back to the borders of the forest and 
full of water birds and wild fowl of every variety. 
Penn, now in the prime of life, must surely have 
been aroused by this scene and by the reflection 
that the noble river was his and the vast stretches 
of forests and mountains for three hundred miles 
to the westward. 

He was soon ashore, exploring the edge of his 
mighty domain, settling his government, and 
passing his laws. He was much pleased with the 
Swedes whom he found on his land. He changed 
the name of the little Swedish village of Upland, 
fifteen miles below Philadelphia, to Chester. He 
superintended laying out the streets of Philadel- 
phia and they remain to this day substantially 
as he planned them, though unfortunately too 
narrow and monotonously regular. He met the 
Indians at Philadelphia, sat with them at their 
fires, ate their roasted corn, and when to amuse 
him they showed him some of their sports and 
games he renewed his college days by joining 
them in a jumping match. 

Then he started on journeys. He traveled 
through the woods to New York, which then be- 
longed to the Duke of York, who had given him 



PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE 19 

Delaware; he visited the Long Island Quakers; 
and on his return he went to Maryland to meet 
with much pomp and ceremony Lord Baltimore 
and there discuss with him the disputed boundary. 
He even crossed to the eastern shore of the Chesa- 
peake to visit a Quaker meeting on the Choptank 
before winter set in, and he describes the immense 
migration of wild pigeons at that season, and the 
flocks which flew so low and were so tame that 
the colonists knocked them down with sticks. 

Most of the winter he spent at Chester and 
wrote to England in high spirits of his journeys, 
the wonders of the country, the abundance of 
game and provisions, and the twenty-three ships 
which had arrived so swiftly that few had taken 
longer than six weeks, and only three had been 
infected with the smallpox. "Oh how sweet," 
he says, "is the quiet of these parts, freed from 
the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries 
and perplexities of woful Europe." 

As the weeks and months passed, ships kept 
arriving with more Quakers, far exceeding the 
migration to the Jerseys. By summer, Penn re- 
ported that 50 sail had arrived within the past 
year, 80 houses had been built in Philadelphia, 
and about 300 farms had been laid out round the 



20 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

town. It is supposed that about 3000 immigrants 
had arrived. This was a more rapid development 
than was usual in the colonies of America. Mas- 
sachusetts and Virginia had been established slowly 
and with much privation and suffering. But the 
settlement of Philadelphia was like a summer out- 
ing. There were no dangers, the hardships were tri- 
fling, and there was no sickness or famine. There 
was such an abundance of game close at hand that 
hunger and famine were in nowise to be feared. 
The climate was good and the Indians, kindly 
treated, remained friendly for seventy years. 

It is interesting to note that in that same year, 
1682, in which Penn and his friends with such ease 
and comfort founded their great colony on the 
Delaware, the French explorers and voyageurs from 
Canada, after years of incredible hardships, had 
traversed the northern region of the Great Lakes 
with their canoes and had passed down the Missis- 
sippi to its mouth, giving to the whole of the 
Great West the name of Louisiana, and claiming 
it for France. Already La Salle had taken his 
fleet of canoes down the Mississippi River and 
had placed the arms of France on a post at its 
mouth in April, 1682, only a few months before 
Penn reached his newly acquired colony. Thus 



PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE 21 

in the same year in which the Quakers estabhshed 
in Pennsylvania their reign of liberty and of peace 
with the red men, La Salle was laying the founda- 
tion of the western empire of despotic France, 
which seventy years afterwards was to hurl the 
savages upon the English colonies, to wreck the 
Quaker policy of peace, but to fail in the end to 
maintain itself against the free colonies of England. 
While they were building houses in Philadel- 
phia, the settlers lived in bark huts or in caves dug 
in the river bank, as the early settlers in New 
Jersey across the river had lived. Pastorius, a 
learned German Quaker, who had come out with 
the English, placed over the door of his cave the 
motto, ''Parva domus, sed arnica bonis, procul este 
profani/' which much amused Penn when he saw 
it. A certain Mrs. Morris was much exercised one 
day as to how she could provide supper in the cave 
for her husband who was working on the construc- 
tion of their house. But on returning to her cave 
she found that her cat had just brought in a fine 
rabbit. In their later prosperous years they had 
a picture of the cat and the rabbit made on a box 
which has descended as a family heirloom. Doubt- 
less there were preserved many other interesting 
reminiscences of the brief camp life. 



22 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

These Quakers were all of the thrifty, industrious 
type which had gone to West Jersey a few years 
before. Men of means, indeed, among the Quak- 
ers were the first to seek refuge from the fines and 
confiscations imposed upon them in England. 
They brought with them excellent supplies of 
everything. Many of the ships carried the frames 
of houses ready to put together. But substantial 
people of this sort demanded for the most part 
houses of brick, with stone cellars. Fortunately 
both brick clay and stone were readily obtainable 
in the neighborhood, and whatever may have been 
the case in other colonies, ships loaded with brick 
from England would have found it Httle to their 
profit to touch at Philadelphia. An early descrip- 
tion says that the brick houses in Philadelphia 
were modeled on those of London, and this type 
prevailed for nearly two hundred years. 

It_was probably in June, 1683, that Penn made 
his famous treaty with the Indians. No docu- 
mentary proof of the existence of such a treaty 
has reached us. He made, indeed, a number of 
so-called treaties, which were really only purchases 
of land involving oral promises between the prin- 
cipals to treat each other fairly. Hundreds of 
such treaties have been made. The remarkable 



PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE 23 

part about Penn's dealings with the Indians was 
that such promises as he made he kept. The 
other Quakers, too, were as careful as Penn in 
their honorable treatment of the red men. Quak- 
er families of farmers and settlers lived unarmed 
among them for generations and, when absent 
from home, left children in their care. The In- 
dians, on their part, were known to have helped 
white families with food in winter time. Penn, 
on his first visit to the colony, made a long journey 
imarmed among the Indians as far as the Susque- 
hanna, saw the great herds of elk on that river, 
lived[^in Indian wigwams, and learned much of 
the language and customs of the natives. There 
need never be any trouble with them, he said. 
They were the easiest people in the world to get 
on with if the white men would simply be just. 
Penn's fair treatment of the Indians kept Penn- 
sylvania at peace with them for about seventy 
years — in fact, from 1682 until the outbreak 
of the French and Indian Wars, in 1755. In its 
critical period of growth, Pennsylvania was there- 
fore not at all harassed or checked by those Indian 
hostilities which were such a serious impediment 
in other colonies. 

The two years of Penn's first visit were probably 



\A^ 



24 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the happiest of his life. Always fond of the coun- 
try, he built himself a fine seat on the Delaware 
near Bristol, and it would have been better for 
him, and probably also for the colony, if he had 
remained there. But he thought he had duties 
in England: his family needed him; he must de- 
fend his people from the religious oppression still 
prevailing; and Lord Baltimore had gone to Eng- 
land to resist him in the boundary dispute. One 
of the more narrow-minded of his faith wrote to 
Penn from England that he was enjoying himself 
too much in his colony and seeking his own selfish 
interest. Influenced by all these considerations, 
he returned in August, 1684, and it was long before 
he saw Pennsylvania again — not, indeed, until 
October, 1699, and then for only two years. 

1-' t^^JjOs^'^^^^-^ 



CHAPTER III 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 



The rapid increase of population and the growing 
prosperity in Pennsylvania during the life of its 
founder present a striking contrast to the slower 
and more troubled growth of the other British 
colonies in America. The settlers in Pennsylvania 
engaged at once in profitable agriculture. The 
loam, clay, and limestone soils on the Pennsylvania 
side of the Delaware produced heavy crops of 
grain, as well as pasture for cattle and valuable 
lumber from its forests. The Pennsylvania set- 
tlers were of a class particularly skilled in dealing 
with the soil. They apparently encountered none 
of the difficulties, due probably to incompetent farm- 
ing, which beset the settlers of Delaware, whose land 
was as good as that of the Pennsylvania colonists. 

In a few years the port of Philadelphia was load- 
ing abundant cargoes for England and the great 
West India trade. After much experimenting 

25 



26 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

with different places on the river, such as New 
Castle, Wilmington, Salem, Burlington, the Quak- 
ers had at last found the right location for a great 
seat of commerce and trade that could serve as 
a center for the export of everything from the re- 
gion behind it and around it. Philadelphia thus 
soon became the basis of a prosperity which no 
other townsite on the Delaware had been able to 
attain. The Quakers of Philadelphia were the 
soundest of financiers and men of business, and 
in their skillful hands the natural resources of their 
colony were developed without setback or acci- 
dent. At an early date banking institutions were 
established in Philadelphia, and the strongest co- 
lonial merchants and mercantile firms had their 
offices there. It was out of such a sound business 
life that were produced in Revolutionary times 
such characters as Robert Morris and after the 
Revolution men like Stephen Girard. 

Pennsylvania in colonial times was ruled from 
Philadelphia somewhat as France has always been 
ruled from Paris. And yet there was a difference: 
Pennsylvania had free government. The Ger- 
mans and the Scotch-Irish outnumbered the Quak- 
ers and could have controlled the Legislature, 
for in 1750 out of a population of 150,000 the 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 27 

Quakers were only about 50,000; and yet the 
Legislature down to the Revolution was always 
confided to the competent hands of the Quakers. 
No higher tribute, indeed, has ever been paid to any 
group of people as governors of a commonwealth 
and architects of its finance and trade. 

It is a curious commentary on the times and on 
human nature that these Quaker folk; treated as 
outcasts and enemies of good order and religion 
in England and gradually losing all their property 
in heavy fines and confiscations, should so sud- 
denly in the wilderness prove the capacity of their 
"Holy Experiment" for achieving the best sort 
of good order and material success. They imme- 
diately built a most charming little town by the 
waterside, snug and pretty with its red brick 
houses in the best architectural style. It was 
essentially a commercial town down to the time 
of the Revolution and long afterwards. The 
principal residences were on Water Street, the 
second street from the wharves. The town in 
those days extended back only as far as Fourth 
Street, and the State House, now Independence 
Hall, an admirable instance of the local brick 
architecture, stood on the edge of the town. The 
Pennsylvania Hospital the first institution of its 



28 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

kind to be built in America, was situated out in 
the fields. 

Through the town ran a stream following the 
line of the present Dock Street. Its mouth had 
been a natural landing place for the first explorers 
and for the Indians from time immemorial. Here 
stood a neat tavern, the Blue Anchor, with its 
dovecotes in old English style, looking out for 
many a year over the river with its fleet of small 
boats. Along the wharves lay the very solid, 
broad, somber, Quaker-like brick warehouses, some 
of which have survived into modern times. 
Everywhere were to be found ships and the good 
seafaring smell of tar and hemp. Ships were built 
and fitted out alongside docks where other ships 
were lading. A privateer would receive her equip- 
ment of guns, pistols, and cutlasses on one side of 
a wharf, while on the other side a ship was peace- 
fully loading wheat or salted provisions for the 
West Indies. 

Everybody's attention in those days was cen- 
tered on the water instead of inland on railroads 
as it is today. Commerce was the source of wealth 
of the town as agriculture was the wealth of the 
interior of the province. Every one lived close 
to the river and had an interest in the rise and fall 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 29 

of the tide. The little town extended for a mile 
along the water but scarcely half a mile back from 
it. All communication with other places, all news 
from the world of Europe came from the ships, 
whose captains brought the letters and the few 
newspapers which reached the colonists. An im- 
portant ship on her arrival often fired a gun and 
dropped anchor with some ceremony. Immedi- 
ately the shore boats swarmed to her side; the 
captain was besieged for news and usually brought 
the letters ashore to be distributed at the coffee- 
house. This institution took the place of the 
modern stock exchange, clearing house, newspa- 
per, university, club, and theater all under one 
roof, with plenty to eat and drink besides. Within 
its rooms vessels and cargoes were sold; before its 
door negro slaves were auctioned off; and around 
it as a common center were brought together all 
sorts of business, valuable information, gossip, 
and scandal. It must have been a brilliant scene 
in the evening, with the candles lighting embroid- 
ered red and yellow waistcoats, blue and scarlet 
coats, green and black velvet, with the rich drab 
and mouse color of the prosperous Quakers con- 
trasting with the uniforms of British officers come 
to fight the French and Indian wars. 



so THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Sound, as well as color, had its place in this 
busy and happy colonial life. Christ Church, a 
brick building which still stands the perfection 
of colonial architecture had been established by 
the Church of England people defiantly in the 
midst of heretical Quakerdom. It soon possessed 
a chime of bells sent out from England. Captain 
Budden, who brought them in his ship Myrtilla, 
would charge no freight for so charitable a deed, 
and in consequence of his generosity every time 
he and his ship appeared in the harbor the bells 
were rung in his honor. They were rung on 
market days to please the farmers who came into 
town with their wagons loaded with poultry and 
vegetables. They were rung muffled in times of 
public disaster and were kept busy in that way in 
the French and Indian wars. They were also rung 
muffled for Franklin when it was learned that 
while in London he had favored the Stamp Act 
— a means of expressing popular opinion which 
the newspapers subsequently put out of date. 

The severe Quaker code of conduct and peaceful 
contemplation contains no prohibition against! 
good eating and drinking. Quakers have been 
known to have the gout. The opportunities in 
Philadelphia to enjoy the pleasures of the tabk 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 31 

were soon unlimited. Farm, garden, and dairy 
products, vegetables, poultry, beef, and mutton 
were soon produced in immense quantity and 
variety and of excellent quality. John Adams, 
coming from the "plain living and high thinking" 
of Boston to attend the first meeting of the Con- 
tinental Congress in Philadelphia, was invited to 
dine with Stephen Collins, a typical Quaker, and 
was amazed at the feast set before him. From 
that time his diary records one after another of 
these "sinful feasts," as he calls them. But the 
sin at which he thus looks askance never seems 
to have withheld him from a generous indulgence. 
"Drank Madeira at a great rate," he says on one 
occasion, "and took no harm from it." Madeira 
obtained in the trade with Spain was the popular 
drink even at the taverns. Various forms of punch 
and rum were common, but the modern light wines 
and champagne were not then in vogue. 

Food in great quantity and variety seems to 
have been placed on the table at the same time, 
with little regard to formal courses. Beef, poul- 
try, and mutton would all be served at one dinner. 
Fruit and nuts were placed on the table in profu- 
sion, as well as puddings and desserts numerous 
and deadly. Dinners were served usually in the 



32 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

afternoon. The splendid banquet which Adams de- 
scribes as given to some members of the Continen- 
tal Congress by Chief Justice Chew at his country 
seat was held at four in the afternoon. The din- 
ner hour was still in the afternoon long after the 
Revolution and down to the times of the Civil War. 
Other relics of this old love of good living lasted 
into modern times. It was not so very long ago 
that an occasional householder of wealth and dis- 
tinction in Philadelphia could still be found who 
insisted on doing his own marketing in the old 
way, going himself the first thing in the morn- 
ing on certain days to the excellent markets and 
purchasing all the family supplies. Philadelphia 
poultry is still famous the country over; and to 
be a good judge of poultry was in the old days as 
much a point of merit as to be a good judge of 
Madeira. A typical Philadelphian, envious New 
Yorkers say, will still keep a line of depositors 
waiting at a bank while he discourses to the re- 
ceiving teller on what a splendid purchase of poul- 
try he had made that morning. Early in the last 
century a wealthy leader of the bar is said to have 
continued the old practice of going to market fol- 
lowed by a negro with a wheelbarrow to bring 
back the supplies. 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 33 

Not content with feasting in their own homes, 
the colonial Philadelphians were continually ban- 
queting at the numerous taverns, from the Coach 
and Horses, opposite the State House, down to 
the Penny Pot Inn close by the river. At the 
Coach and Horses, where the city elections were 
usually held, the discarded oyster shells around 
it had been trampled into a hard white and smooth 
floor over which surged the excited election crowds. 
In those taverns the old fashion prevailed of roast- 
ing great joints of meat on a turnspit before an 
open fire; and to keep the spit turning before the 
heat little dogs were trained to work in a sort of 
treadmill cage. 

In nothing is this colonial prosperity better re- 
vealed than in the quality of the country seats. 
They were usually built of stone and sometimes 
of brick and stone, substantial, beautifully pro- 
portioned, admirable in taste, with a certain sim- 
plicity, yet indicating a people of wealth, leisure, 
and refinement, who believed in themselves and 
took pleasure in adorning their lives. Not a few 
of these homes on the outskirts of the city have 
come down to us unharmed, and Cliveden, Sten- 
ton, and Belmont are precious relics of such solid 
structure that with ordinary care they will still 



34 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

last for centuries. Many were destroyed during 
the Revolution; others, such as Landsdowne, the 
seat of one of the Penn family, built in the Italian 
style, have disappeared ; others were wiped out by 
the city's growth. All of them, even the small 
ones, were most interesting and typical of the life 
of the times. The colonists began to build them 
very early. A family would have a solid, brick 
town house and, only a mile or so away, a country 
house which was equally substantial. Sometimes 
they built at a greater distance. Governor Keith, 
for example, had a country seat, still standing 
though built in the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, some twenty-five miles north of the city in 
what was then almost a wilderness. 

Penn's ideal had always been to have Philadel- 
phia what he called "a green country town." 
Probably he had in mind the beautiful English 
towns of abundant foliage and open spaces. And 
Penn was successful, for many of the Philadelphia 
houses stood by themselves, with gardens round 
them. The present Walnut was first called Pool 
Street; Chestnut was called Winn Street; and 
Market was called High Street. If he could have 
foreseen the enormous modern growth of the city, 
he might not have made his streets so narrow and 



LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 35 

level. But the fault lies perhaps rather with the 
people for adhering so rigidly and for so long to 
Penn's scheme, when traffic that he could not have 
imagined demanded wider streets. If he could have 
lived into our times he would surely have sent us 
very positive directions in his bluff British way 
to break up the original rectangular, narrow plan 
which was becoming dismally monotonous when 
applied to a widely spread-out modern city. He 
was a theologian, but he had a very keen eye for 
appearances and beauty of surroundings. 



CHAPTER IV 

TYPES OF THE POPULATION 

The arrival of colonists in Pennsylvania in greater 

numbers than in Delaware and the Jerseys was 

the more notable because, within a few years after 

Pennsylvania was founded, persecution of the 

Quakers ceased in England and one prolific cause 

of their migration was no more. Thirteen hundred 

Quakers were released from prison in 1686 by 

James II; and in 1689, when William of Orange 

took the throne, toleration was extended to the 

Quakers and other Protestant dissenters. 

The success of the first Quakers who came to 

America brought others even after persecution 

ceased in England. The most numerous class of 

immigrants for the first fifteen or twenty years 

were Welsh, most of whom were Quakers with 

a few Baptists and Church of England people. 

They may have come not so much from a desire 

to flee from persecution as to build up a little 

S6 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 37 

Welsh community and to revive Welsh national- 
ism. In their new surroundings they spoke their 
own Welsh language and very few of them had 
learned English. They had been encouraged in 
their national aspirations by an agreement with 
Penn that they were to have a tract of 40,000 acres 
where they could live by themselves. The land 
assigned to them lay west of Philadelphia in that 
high ridge along the present main line of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, now so noted for its wealthy 
suburban homes. All the important names of 
townships and places in that region, such as Wynne- 
wood, St. Davids, Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Merion, 
Haverford, Radnor, are Welsh in origin. Some 
of the Welsh spread round to the north of Phila- 
delphia, where names like Gwynedd and Penllyn 
remain as their memorials. The Chester Valley 
bordering the high ridge of their first settlement 
they called Duff r in Mawr or Great Valley. 

These Welsh, like so many of the Quakers, were 
of a well-to-do class. They rapidly developed 
their fertile land and, for pioneers, lived quite 
luxuriously. They had none of the usual county 
and township officers but ruled their Welsh Barony, 
as it was called, through the authority of their 
Quaker meetings. But this system eventually 



38 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

disappeared. The Welsh were absorbed into the 
English population, and in a couple of generations 
their language disappeared. Prominent people 
are descended from them. David Rittenhouse, 
the astronomer, was Welsh on his mother's side. 
David Lloyd, for a long time the leader of the 
popular party and at one time Chief Justice, 
was a Welshman. Since the Revolution the 
Welsh names of Cadwalader and Meredith have 
been conspicuous. 

The Church of England people formed a curious 
and decidedly hostile element in the early popu- 
lation of Pennsylvania. They established them- 
selves in Philadelphia in the beginning and rapidl}^ 
grew into a political party which, while it cannot 
be called very strong in numbers, was important 
in ability and influence. After Penn's death, his 
sons joined the Church of England, and the Church- 
men in the province became still stronger. They 
formed the basis of the proprietary party, filled 
executive offices in the Government, and waged 
relentless war against the Quaker majority which 
controlled the Legislature. During Penn's life- 
time the Churchmen were naturally opposed to 
the whole government, both executive and legis- 
lative. They were constantly sending home to 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 39 

England all sorts of reports and information cal- 
culated to show that the Quakers were unfit to 
rule a province, that Penn should be deprived of 
his charter, and that Pennsylvania should be put 
under the direct rule of the King. 

They had delightful schemes for making it a 
strong Church of England colony like Virginia. 
One of them suggested that, as the title to the 
Three Lower Counties, as Delaware was called, 
was in dispute, it should be taken by the Crown 
and given to the Church as a manor to support a 
bishop. Such an ecclesiastic certainly could have 
lived in princely state from the rents of its fertile 
farms, with a palace, retinue, chamberlains, chan- 
cellors, feudal courts, and all the appendages of 
earthly glory. For the sake of the picturesque- 
ness of colonial history it is perhaps a pity that 
this pious plan was never carried out. 

As it was, however, the Churchmen established 
themselves with not a little glamour and romance 
round two institutions, Christ Church for the first 
fifty years, and after that round the old College 
of Philadelphia. The Reverend William Smith, a 
pugnacious and eloquent Scotchman, led them in 
many a gallant onset against the "haughty tribe" 
of Quakers, and he even suffered imprisonment in 



40 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the cause. He had a country seat on the Schuyl- 
kill and was in his way a fine character, devoted 
to the establishment of ecclesiasticism and high- 
er learning as a bulwark against the menace of 
Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of 
the Revolution he might have become the first 
colonial bishop with all the palaces, pomp, and glory 
appertaining thereunto. 

In spite of this opposition, however, the Quak- 
ers continued their control of the colony, serenely 
tolerating the anathemas of the learned Church- 
men and the fierce curses and brandished weapons 
of the Presbyterians and Scotch-Irish. Curses 
and anathemas were no check to the fertile soil. 
Grist continued to come to the mill; and the agri- 
cultural products poured into Philadelphia to be 
carried away in the ships. The contemplative 
Quaker took his profits as they passed; enacted 
his liberalizing laws, his prison reform, his chari- 
ties, his peace with the savage Indians; allowed 
science, research, and all the kindly arts of life to 
flourish; and seemed perfectly contented with the 
damnation in the other world to which those who 
flourished under his rule consigned him. 

In discussing the remarkable success of the 
province, the colonists always disputed whether 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 41 

the credit should be given to the fertile soil or to 
the liberal laws and constitution. It was no doubt 
due to both. But the obvious advantages of 
Penn's charter over the mixed and troublesome 
governmental conditions in the Jerseys, Penn's 
personal fame and the repute of the Quakers for 
liberalism then at its zenith, and the wide adver- 
tising given to their ideas and Penn's, on the con- 
tinent of Europe as well as in England, seem to 
have been the reasons why more people, and many 
besides Quakers, came to take advantage of that 
fertile soil. 

The first great increase of alien population came 
from Germany, which was still in a state of reli- 
gious turmoil, disunion, and depression from the 
results of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' 
War. The reaction from dogma in Germany had 
produced a multitude of sects, all yearning for 
greater liberty and prosperity than they had at 
home. Penn and other Quakers had made mis- 
sionary tours in Germany and had preached to 
the people. The Germans do not appear to have 
been asked to come to the Jerseys. But they were 
urged to come to Pennsylvania as soon as the 
charter was obtained; and many of them made 
an immediate response. 



42 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

The German mind was then at the height of its 
emotional unrestraint. It was as unaccustomed 
to liberty of thought as to political liberty and it 
produced a new sect or religious distinction almost 
every day. Many of these sects came to Pennsyl- 
vania, where new small religious bodies sprang 
up among them after their arrival. Schwenkf el- 
ders, Tunkers, Labadists, New^ Born, New Moon- 
ers. Separatists, Zion's Brueder, Ronsdorfer, In- 
spired, Quietists, Gichtelians, Depellians, Moun- 
tain Men, River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, and 
the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, are 
names which occur in the annals of the province. 
But these are only a few. In Lancaster County 
alone the number has at different times been esti- 
mated at from twenty to thirty. It would proba- 
bly be impossible to make a complete list; some of 
them, indeed, existed for only a few years. Their 
own writers describe them as countless and be- 
wildering. Many of them were characterized by 
the strangest sort of German mysticism, and some 
of them were inclined to monastic and hermit life 
and their devotees often lived in caves or solitary 
huts in the woods. 

It would hardly be accurate to call all the Ger- 
man sects Quakers, since a great deal of their 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 43 

mysticism would have been anything but con- 
genial to the followers of Fox and Penn. Resem- 
blances to Quaker doctrine can, however, be found 
among many of them; and there was one large 
sect, the Mennonites, who were often spoken of as 
German Quakers. The two divisions fraternized 
and preached in each other's meetings. The Men- 
nonites were well educated as a class and Pas- 
torius, their leader, was a ponderously learned 
German. Most of the German sects left the 
Quakers in undisturbed possession of Philadelphia, 
and spread out into the surrounding region, which 
was then a wilderness. They and all the other 
Germans who afterwards followed them settled 
in a half circle beginning at Easton on the Dela- 
ware, passing up the Lehigh Valley into Lancaster 
County, thence across the Susquehanna and down 
the Cumberland Valley to the Maryland border, 
which many of them crossed, and in time scat- 
tered far to the south in Virginia and even North 
Carolina, where their descendants are still found. 
These German sects which came over under 
the influence of Penn and the Quakers, between 
the years 1682 and 1702, formed a class by them- 
selves. Though they may be regarded as peculiar 
in their ideas and often in their manner of life, it 



44 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

cannot be denied that as a class they were a well- 
educated, thrifty, and excellent people and far 
superior to the rough German peasants who fol- 
lowed them in later years. This latter class was 
often spoken of in Pennsylvania as "the church 
people," to distinguish them from "the sects," as 
those of the earlier migration were called. 

The church people, or peasantry of the later 
migration, belonged usually to one of the two 
dominant churches of Germany, the Lutheran or 
the Reformed. Those of the Reformed Church 
were often spoken of as Calvinists. This migra- 
tion of the church people was not due to the ex- 
ample of the Quakers but was the result of a new 
policy which was adopted by the British Govern- 
ment when Queen Anne ascended the throne in 
1702, and which aimed at keeping the English 
people at home and at filling the English colonies 
in America with foreign Protestants hostile to 
France and Spain. 

Large numbers of these immigrants were "re- 
demptioners," as they were called; that is to say, 
they were persons who had been obliged to sell 
themselves to the shipping agents to pay for their 
passage. On their arrival in Pennsylvania the 
captain sold them to the colonists to pay the 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 45 

passage, and the redemptioner had to work for his 
owner for a period varying from five to ten years. 
No stigma or disgrace clung to any of these peo- 
ple under this system. It was regarded as a 
necessary business transaction. Not a few of the 
very respectable families of the State and some of 
its prominent men are known to be descended 
from redemptioners. 

This method of transporting colonists proved a 
profitable trade for the shipping people, and was 
soon regularly organized like the modern assisted 
immigration. Agents, called "newlanders" and 
"soul-sellers," traveled through Germany work- 
ing up the transatlantic traffic by various devices, 
some of them not altogether creditable. Pennsyl- 
vania proved to be the most attractive region for 
these immigrants. Some of those who were taken 
to other colonies finally worked their way to Penn- 
sylvania. Practically none went to New England, 
and very few, if any, to Virginia. Indeed, only 
certain colonies w^ere willing to admit them. 

Another important element that went to make 
up the Pennsylvania population consisted of the 
Scotch -Irish . They were descendants of Scotch 
and English Presbyterians who had gone to Ireland 
to take up the estates of the Irish rebels confiscated 



46 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

under Queen Elizabeth and James I. This migra- 
tion of Protestants to Ireland, which began soon 
after 1600, was encouraged by the English Govern- 
ment. Towards the middle of the seventeenth 
century the confiscation of more Irish land under 
Cromwell's regime increased the migration to 
Ulster. Many English joined the migration, and 
Scotch of the Lowlands who were largely of Eng- 
lish extraction, although there were many Gaelic 
or Celtic names among them. 

These are the people usually known in English 
history as Ulstermen — the same who made such 
a heroic defense of Londonderry against James II, 
and the same who in modern times have resisted 
home rule in Ireland because it would bury them, 
they believe, under the tyranny of their old ene- 
mies, the native Irish Catholic majority. They 
were more thrifty and industrious than the native 
Irish and as a result they usually prospered on 
the Irish land. At first they were in a more or 
less constant state of war with the native Irish, 
who attempted to expel them. They were sub- 
sequently persecuted by the Church of England 
under Charles I, who attempted to force them to 
conform to the English established religion. Such 
a rugged schooling in Ireland made of them a very 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 47 

aggressive, hardy people, Protestants of the Prot- 
estants, so accustomed to contests and warfare 
that they accepted it as the natural state of man. 

These Ulstermen came to Pennsylvania some- 
what later than the first German sects; and not 
many of them arrived until some years after 1700. 
They were not, like the first Germans, attracted 
to the colony by any resemblance of their religion 
to that of the Quakers. On the contrary they 
were entirely out of sympathy with the Quakers, 
except in the one point of religious liberty; and 
the Quakers were certainly out of sympathy with 
them. Nearly all the colonies in America received 
a share of these settlers. Wherever they went 
they usually sought the frontier and the wilder- 
ness; and by the time of the Revolution, they 
could be found upon the whole colonial frontier 
from New Hampshire to Georgia. They were 
quite numerous in Virginia, and most numerous 
along the edge of the Pennsylvania wilderness. It 
was apparently the liberal laws and the fertile soil 
that drew them to Pennsylvania in spite of their 
contempt for most of the Quaker doctrines. 

The dream of their life, their haven of rest, was 
for these Scotch-Irish a fertile soil where they 
would find neither Irish "papists" nor Church of 



48 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

England; and for this reason in America they 
always sought the frontier where they could be 
by themselves. They could not even get on well 
with the Germans in Pennsylvania; and when the 
Germans crowded into their frontier settlements, 
quarrels became so frequent that the proprietors 
asked the Ulstermen to move farther west, a sug- 
gestion which they were usually quite willing to 
accept. At the close of the colonial period in 
Pennsylvania the Quakers, the Church of Eng- 
land people, and the miscellaneous denominations 
occupied Philadelphia and the region round it in 
a half circle from the Delaware River. Outside 
of this area lay another containing the Germans, 
and beyond that were the Scotch-Irish. The 
principal stronghold of the Scotch-Irish was the 
Cumberland Valley in Southern Pennsylvania 
west of the Susquehanna, a region now containing 
the flourishing towns of Chambersburg, Gettys- 
burg, Carlisle, and York, where the descendants 
of these early settlers are still very numerous. 
In modern times, however, they have spread out 
widely; they are now to be found all over the State, 
and they no longer desire so strongly to live 
by themselves. 

The Ulstermen, owing to the circumstances of 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 49 

their earlier life, had no sympathy whatever with 
the Quaker's objection to war or with his desire 
to deal fairly with the Indians and pay them for 
their land. As Presbyterians and Calvinists, they 
belonged to one of the older and more conservative 
divisions of the Reformation. The Quaker's doc- 
trine of the inward light, his quietism, contem- 
plation, and advanced ideas were quite incompre- 
hensible to them. As for the Indians, they held 
that the Old Testament commands the destruction 
of all the heathen; and as for paying the savages 
for their land, it seemed ridiculous to waste money 
on such an object when they could exterminate 
the natives at less cost. The Ulstermen, therefore, 
settled on the Indian land as they pleased, or for 
that matter on any land, and were continually 
getting into difficulty with the Pennsylvania Gov- 
ernment no less than with the Indians. They 
regarded any region into which they entered as 
constituting a sovereign state. It was this feeling 
of independence which subsequently prompted 
them to organize what is known as the Whisky 
Rebellion when, after the Revolution, the Federal 
Government put a tax on the liquor which they 
so much esteemed as a product, for corn converted 
into whisky was more easily transported on horses 



50 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

over mountain trails, and in that form fetched a 
better price in the markets. 

After the year 1755, when the Quaker method 
of deahng with the Indians no longer prevailed, 
the Scotch-Irish lived on the frontier in a contin- 
ual state of savage warfare which lasted for the 
next forty years. War, hunting the abundant 
game, the deer, buffalo, and elk, and some agricul- 
ture filled the measure of their days and years. 
They paid little attention to the laws of the prov- 
ince, which were difficult to enforce on the distant 
frontier, and they administered a criminal code of 
their own with whipping or "laced jacket," as 
they called it, as a punishment. They were Jacks 
of all trades, weaving their own cloth and making 
nearly everything they needed. They were the 
first people in America to develop the use of the 
rifle, and they used it in the Back Country all the 
way down into the Carolinas at a time when it 
was seldom seen in the seaboard settlements. In 
those days, rifles were largely manufactured in 
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and there were several 
famous gunsmiths in Philadelphia. Some of the 
best of these old rifles have been preserved and 
are really beautiful weapons, with delicate hair 
triggers, gracefully curved stocks, and quaint brass 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 51 

or even gold or silver mountings. The ornamenta- 
tion was often done by the hunter himself, who 
would melt a gold or silver coin and pour it into 
some design which he had carved with his knife 
in the stock. 

The Revolution offered an opportunity after 
the Ulstermen's heart, and they entered it with 
their entire spirit, as they had every other contest 
which involved liberty and independence. In fact, 
in that period they played such a conspicuous 
part that they almost ruled Philadelphia, the origi- 
nal home of the Quakers. Since then, spread 
out through the State, they have always had 
great influence, the natural result of their energy, 
intelligence, and love of education. 

Nearly all these diverse elements of the Penn- 
sylvania population were decidedly sectional in 
character. The Welsh had a language of their 
own, and they attempted, though without success, 
to maintain it, as well as a government of their 
own within their barony independent of the regular 
government of the province. The Germans were 
also extremely sectional. They clung with better 
success to their own language, customs, and liter- 
ature. The Scotch-Irish were so clannish that 
they had ideas of founding a separate province on 



52 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the Susquehanna. Even the Church of England 
people were so aloof and partisan that, though 
they lived about Philadelphia among the Quakers, 
they were extremely hostile to the Quaker rule and 
unremittingly strove to destroy it. 

All these cleavages and divisions in the popula- 
tion continue in their effects to this day. They 
prevented the development of a homogeneous 
population. No exact statistics were taken of 
the numbers of the different nationalities in co- 
lonial times; but Franklin's estimate is probably 
fairly accurate, and his position in practical poli- 
tics gave him the means of knowing and of testing 
his calculations. About the year 1750 he esti- 
mated the population as one-third Quaker, one- 
third German, and one-third miscellaneous. This 
gave about 50,000 or 60,000 to each of the thirds. 
Provost Smith, of the newly founded college, esti- 
mated the Quakers at only about 40,000. But 
his estimate seems too low. He was interested in 
making out their numbers small because he was 
trying to show the absurdity of allowing such a 
small band of fanatics and heretics to rule a great 
province of the British Empire. One great source 
of the Quaker power lay in the sympathy of the 
Germans, who always voted on their side and kept 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 53 

them in control of the Legislature, so that it was 
in reality a case of two-thirds ruling one-third. 
The Quakers, it must be admitted, never lost their 
heads. Unperturbed through all the conflicts 
and the jarring of races and sects, they held their 
position unimpaired and kept the confidence and 
support of the Germans until the Revolution 
changed everything. 

The varied elements of population spread out 
in ever widening half circles from Philadelphia as 
a center. There was nothing in the character of 
the region to stop this progress. The country all 
the way westward to the Susquehanna was easy 
hill, dale, and valley, covered by a magnificent 
growth of large forest trees — oaks, beeches, pop- 
lars, walnuts, hickories, and ash — which rewarded 
the labor of felling by exposing to cultivation a 
most fruitful soil. 

The settlers followed the old Indian trails. The 
first westward pioneers seem to have been the 
Welsh Quakers, who pushed due west from Phila- 
delphia and marked out the course of the famous 
Lancaster Road, afterwards the Lancaster Turn- 
pike. It took the line of least resistance along 
the old trail, following ridges until it reached 
the Susquehanna at a spot where an Indian trader. 



54 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

named Harris, established himself and founded a 
post which subsequently became Harrisburg, the 
capital of the State. 

For a hundred years the Lancaster Road was 
the great highway westward, at first to the moun- 
tains, then to the Ohio, and finally to the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and the Great West. Immigrants 
and pioneers from all the New England and Middle 
States flocked out that way to the land of promise 
in wagons, or horseback, or trudging along on foot. 
Substantial taverns grew up along the route; and 
habitual freighters and stage drivers, proud of 
their fine teams of horses, grew into characters of 
the road. When the Pennsylvania Railroad was 
built, it followed the same line. In fact, most of 
the lines of railroad in the State follow Indian trails. 
The trails for trade and tribal intercourse led east 
and west. The warrior trails usually led north 
and south, for that had long been the line of 
strategy and conquest of the tribes. The north- 
ern tribes, or Six Nations, established in the lake 
region of New York near the headwaters of the 
Delaware, the Susquehanna, and the Ohio, had the 
advantage of these river valleys for descending into 
the whole Atlantic seaboard and the valley of the 
Mississippi. They had in consequence conquered 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 55 

all the tribes south of them as far even as the Caro- 
linas and Georgia. All their trails of conquest led 
across Pennsylvania. 

The Germans in their expansion at first seem 
to have followed up the Schuylkill Valley and its 
tributaries, and they hold this region to the pres- 
ent day. Gradually they crossed the watershed 
to the Susquehanna and broke into the region of 
the famous limestone soil in Lancaster County, a 
veritable farmer's paradise from which nothing will 
ever drive them. Many Quaker farmers pene- 
trated north and northeast from Philadelphia into 
Bucks County, a fine rolling and hilly wheat and 
corn region, where their descendants are still found 
and whence not a few well-known Philadelphia 
families have come. 

The Quaker government of Pennsylvania in 
almost a century of its existence largely fulfilled 
its ideals. It did not succeed in governing with- 
out war; but the war was not its fault. It did 
succeed in governing without oaths. An aflSrma- 
tion instead of an oath became the law of Penn- 
sylvania for all who chose an affirmation; and 
this law was soon adopted by most American 
communities. It succeeded in establishing reli- 
gious liberty in Pennsylvania in the fullest sense 



5Q THE QUAKER COLONIES 

of the word. It brought Christianity nearer to its 
original simphcity and made it less superstitious 
and cruel. 

The Quakers had always maintained that it 
was a mistake to suppose that their ideas would 
interfere with material prosperity and happiness; 
and they certainly proved their contention in 
Pennsylvania. To Quaker liberalism was due 
not merely the material prosperity, but prison 
reform and the notable public charities of Penn- 
sylvania; in both of which activities, as in the 
abolition of slavery, the Quakers were leaders. 
Original research in science also flourished in a 
marked degree in colonial Pennsylvania. No one 
in those days knew the nature of thunder and 
lightning, and the old explanation that they were 
the voice of an angry God was for many a sufficient 
explanation. Franklin, by a long series of experi- 
ments in the free Quaker colony, finally proved 
in 1752 that lightning was electricity, that is to 
say, a manifestation of the same force that is pro- 
duced when glass is rubbed with buckskin. He 
invented the lightning rod, discovered the phe- 
nomenon of positive and negative electricity, ex- 
plained the action of the Leyden jar, and was the 
first American writer on the modern science of 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 57 

political economy. This energetic citizen of Penn- 
sylvania spent a large part of his life in research; 
he studied the Gulf Stream, storms and their causes, 
waterspouts, whirlwinds; and he established the 
fact that the northeast storms of the Atlantic coast 
usually move against the wind. 

But Franklin was not the only scientist in the 
colony. Besides his three friends, Kinnersley, 
Hopkinson, and Syng, who worked with him and 
helped him in his discoveries, there were David 
Rittenhouse, the astronomer, John Bartram, the 
botanist, and a host of others. Rittenhouse ex- 
celled in every undertaking which required the 
practical application of astronomy, He attracted 
attention even in Europe for his orrery which 
indicated the movements of the stars and which 
was an advance on all previous instruments of the 
kind. When astronomers in Europe were seek- 
ing to have the transit of Venus of 1769 observed 
in difiPerent parts of the world, Pennsylvania 
alone of the American colonies seems to have 
had the man and the apparatus necessary for the 
work. Rittenhouse conducted the observations 
at three points and won a world-wide reputation 
by the accuracy and skill of his observations. The 
whole community was interested in this scientific 



58 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

undertaking; the Legislature and public institutions 
raised the necessary funds ; and the American Philo- 
sophical Society, the only organization of its kind 
in the colonies, had charge of the preparations. 

The American Philosophical Society had been 
started in Philadelphia in 1743. It was the first 
scientific society to be founded in America, and 
throughout the colonial period it was the only 
society of its kind in the country. Its member- 
ship included not only prominent men throughout 
America, such as Thomas Jefferson, who were in- 
terested in scientific inquiry, but also representa- 
tives of foreign nations. With its library of rare 
and valuable collections and its annual publica- 
tion of essays on almost every branch of science, 
the society still continues its useful scientific work. 

John Bartram, who was the first botanist to 
describe the plants of the New World and who 
explored the whole country from the Great Lakes 
to Florida, was a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial 
times, farmer born and bred. Thomas Godfrey, 
also a colonial Pennsylvanian, was rewarded by 
the Royal Society of England for an improvement 
which he made in the quadrant. Peter Collinson 
of England, a famous naturalist and antiquarian 
of early times, was a Quaker. In modern times 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 59 

John Dalton, the discoverer of the atomic theory 
of color -bhndness, was born of Quaker parents, 
and Edward Cope, of a well-known Philadelphia 
Quaker family, became one of the most eminent 
naturalists and paleontologists of the nineteenth 
century, and unaided discovered over a third of the 
three thousand extinct species of vertebrates recog- 
nized by men of science. In the field of education, 
Lindley Murray, the grammarian of a hundred 
years ago, was a Quaker. Ezra Cornell, a Quaker, 
founded the great university in New York which 
bears his name; and Johns Hopkins, also a Quaker, 
founded the university of that name in Baltimore. 
Pennsylvania deserves the credit of turning 
these early scientific pursuits to popular uses. 
The first American professorship of botany and 
natural history was established in Philadelphia 
College, now the University of Pennsylvania. The 
first American book on a medical subject was 
written in Philadelphia by Thomas Cadwalader 
in 1740 ; the first American hospital was established 
there in 1751; and the first systematic instruction 
in medicine. Since then Philadelphia has pro- 
duced a long line of physicians and surgeons of 
national and European reputation. For half a 
century after the Revolution the city was the 



60 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

center of medical education for the country and it 
still retains a large part of that preeminence. The 
Academy of Natural Sciences founded in Phila- 
delphia in 1812 by two inconspicuous young men, 
an apothecary and a dentist, soon became by the 
spontaneous support of the community a distin- 
guished institution. It sent out two Arctic expe- 
ditions, that of Kane and that of Hayes, and has 
included among its members the most prominent 
men of science in America. It is now the oldest 
as well as the most complete institution of its kind 
in the country. The Franklin Institute, founded 
in Philadelphia in 1824, was the result of a similar 
scientific interest. It was the first institution of 
applied science and the mechanic arts in America. 
Descriptions of the first 2900 patents issued by 
the United States Government are to be found 
only on the pages of its Journal, which is still an 
authoritative annual record. 

Apart from their scientific attainments, one of 
the most interesting facts about the Quakers is the 
large proportion of them who have reached emi- 
nence, often in occupations which are supposed 
to be somewhat inconsistent with Quaker doctrine. 
General Greene, the most capable American oflScer 
of the Revolution, after Washington, was a Rhode 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION 61 

Island Quaker. General Mifflin of the Revolu- 
tion was a Pennsylvania Quaker. General Jacob 
Brown, a Bucks County Pennsylvania Quaker, 
reorganized the army in the War of 1812 and re- 
stored it to its former efficiency. In the long list 
of Quakers eminent in all walks of life, not only 
in Pennsylvania but elsewhere, are to be found 
John Bright, a lover of peace and human liberty 
through a long and eminent career in British poli- 
tics; John Dickinson of Philadelphia, who wrote 
the famous Farmer's Letters so signally useful in 
the American Revolution; Whittiei, the American 
poet, a Quaker born in Massachusetts of a family 
converted from Puritanism when the Quakers in- 
vaded Boston in the seventeenth century; and Ben- 
jamin West, a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial 
times, an artist of permanent eminence, one of the 
founders of the Royal Academ^y in England and its 
president in succession to Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Wherever Quakers are found they are the useful 
and steady citizens. Their eminence seems out 
of all proportion to their comparatively small 
numbers. It has often been asked why this height 
of attainment should occur among a people of 
such narrow religious discipline. But were the 
Quakers really narrow, or were they any more 



62 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

narrow than other rigorously self-disciphned peo- 
ple — Spartans, Puritans, soldiers whose discipline 
enables them to achieve great results? All disci- 
pline is in one sense narrow. Quaker quietude and 
retirement probably conserved mental energy in- 
stead of dissipating it. In an age of supersti- 
tion and irrational religion, their minds were free 
and unhampered, and it was the dominant rational 
tone of their thought that enabled science to 
flourish in Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER V 

THE TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 

The material prosperity of Penn's Holy Experi- 
ment kept on proving itself over and over again 
every month of the year. But meantime great 
events were taking place in England. The period 
of fifteen years from Penn's return to England 
in 1684, until his return to Pennsylvania at the 
close of the year of 1699, was an eventful time in 
English history. It was long for a proprietor to 
be away from his province, and Penn would have 
left a better reputation if he had passed those 
fifteen years in his colony, for in England during 
that period he took what most Americans believe to 
have been the wrong side in the Revolution of 1688. 
Penn was closely tied by both interest and 
friendship to Charles II and the Stuart family. 
When Charles II died in 1685 and his brother, the 
Duke of York, ascended the throne as James II, 
Penn was equally bound to him, because among 

63 



64 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

other things the Duke of York had obtained Penn's 
release in 1669 from imprisonment for his reHgious 
opinions. He became still more bound when one 
of the first acts of the new King's reign was the 
release of a great number of people who had been 
imprisoned for their religion, among them thirteen 
hundred Quakers. In addition to preaching to 
the Quakers and protecting them, Penn used his 
influence with James to secure the return of several 
political offenders from exile. His friendship with 
James raised him, indeed, to a position of no little 
importance at Court. He was constantlj^ con- 
sulted by the King, in whose political policy he 
gradually became more and more involved. 

James was a Roman Catholic and soon per- 
fected his plans for making both Church and State 
a papal appendage and securing for the Crown the 
right to suspend acts of Parliament. Penn at 
first protested, but finally supported the King in 
the belief that he would in the end establish liberty.- 
In his earlier years, however, Penn had written 
pamphlets arguing strenuously against the same 
sort of despotic schemes that James was now un- 
dertaking; and this contradiction of his former 
position seriously injured his reputation even 
among his own people. 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 65 

Part of the policy of James was to grant many 
favors to the Quakers and to all other dissenting 
bodies in England, to release them from prison, 
to give them perfect freedom of worship, and to 
remove the test laws which prevented them from 
holding office. He thus hoped to unite them with 
the Roman Catholics in extirpating the Church of 
England and establishing the Papacy in its place. 
But the dissenters and nonconformists, though 
promised relief from sufferings severer than it is 
possible perhaps now to appreciate, refused almost 
to a man this tempting bait. Even the Quakers, 
who had suffered probably more than the others, 
rejected the offer with indignation and mourned 
the fatal mistake of their leader Penn. All Prot- 
estant England united in condemning him, ac- 
cused him of being a secret Papist and a Jesuit in 
disguise, and believed him guilty of acts and in- 
tentions of which he was probably entirely inno- 
cent. This extreme feeling against Penn is re- 
flected in Macaulay's History of England, which 
strongly espouses the Whig side; and in those 
vivid pages Penn is represented, and very unfairly, 
as nothing less than a scoundrel. 

In spite of the attempts which James naade to 
secure his position, the dissenters, the Church of 



66 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

England, and Penn's own Quakers all joined 
heart and soul in the Revolution of 1688, which 
quickly dethroned the King, drove him from 
England, and placed the Prince of Orange on the 
throne as William III. Penn was now for many 
years in a very unfortunate, if not dangerous, 
position, and was continually suspected of plotting 
to restore James. For three years he was in 
hiding to escape arrest or worse, and he largely 
lost the good will and affection of the Quakers. 

Meantime since his departure from Pennsyl- 
vania in the summer of 1684 that province went 
on increasing in population and in pioneer prosper- 
ity. But Penn's quitrents and money from sales 
of land were far in arrears, and he had been and 
still was at great expense in starting the colony 
and in keeping up the plantation and country seat 
he had established on the Delaware River above 
Philadelphia, j Troublesome political disputes also 
arose. The Council of eighteen members which 
he had authorized to act as governor in his ab- 
sence neglected to send the new laws to him, slight- 
ed his letters, and published laws in their own name 
without mentioning him or the King. These ir- 
regularities were much exaggerated by enemies 
of the Quakers in England. The Council was not 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 67 

a popular body and was frequently at odds with 
the Assembly. 

Penn thought he could improve the government 
by appointing five commissioners to act as gover- 
nor instead of the whole Council. Thomas Lloyd, 
an excellent Quaker who had been President of 
the Council and who had done much to allay hard 
feeling, was fortunately the president of these 
commissioners. Penn instructed them to act as 
if he himself were present, and at the next meeting 
of the Assembly to annul all the laws and reenact 
only such as seemed proper. This course reminds 
us of the absolutism of his friend, King James, 
and, indeed, the date of these instructions (1686) 
is that when his intimacy with that bigoted mon- 
arch reached its highest point. Penn's theory 
of his power was that the frame or constitution 
of government he had given the province was a 
contract; that, the Council and Assembly having 
violated some of its provisions, it was annulled 
and he was free, at least for a time, to govern as 
he pleased. Fortunately his commissioners never 
attempted to carry out these instructions. There 
would have been a rebellion and some very un- 
pleasant history if they had undertaken to enforce 
such oriental despotism in Pennsylvania. 



68 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

The five commissioners with Thomas Lloyd at 
their head seem to have governed without seriously 
troublesome incidents for the short term of two 
years during which they were in power. But in 
1687 Thomas Lloyd, becoming weary of directing 
them, asked to be relieved and is supposed to have 
advised Penn to appoint a single executive instead 
of commissioners. Penn accordingly appointed 
Captain John Blackwell, formerly an officer in 
Cromwell's army. Blackwell was not a Quaker 
but a "grave, sober, wise man," as Penn wrote to 
a friend, who would "bear down with a visible 
authority vice and faction." It was hoped that 
he would vigorously check all irregularities and 
bring Penn better returns from quitrents and 
sales of land. 

But this new governor clashed almost at once 
with the Assembly, tried to make them pass a 
militia law, suggested that the province's trade 
to foreign countries was illegal, persecuted and 
arrested members of the Assembly, refused to 
submit new laws to it, and irritated the people by 
suggesting the invalidity of their favorite laws. 
The Quaker Assembly withstood and resisted him 
until they wore him out. After a year and one 
month in office he resigned at Penn's request or. 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 69 

according to some accounts, at his own request. 
At any rate, he expressed himself as dehghted to 
be relieved. As a Puritan soldier he found him- 
self no match for a peaceable Quaker Assembly. 
Penn again made the Council the executive with 
Thomas Lloyd as its President. But to the old 
causes of unrest a new one was now added. One 
George Keith, a Quaker, turned heretic and car- 
ried a number of Pennsylvania Quakers over to 
the Church of England, thereby causing great 
scandal. The "Lower Counties" or Territories, 
as the present State of Delaware was then called, 
became mutinous, withdrew their representatives 
from the Council, and made William Markham 
their Governor. This action together with the 
Keithian controversy, the disturbances over Black- 
well, and the clamors of Church of England people 
that Penn was absent and neglecting his province, 
that the Quakers would make no military defense, 
and that the province might at any time fall into 
the hands of France, came to the ears of King 
William, who was already ill disposed toward 
Penn and distrusted him as a Jacobite. It seemed 
hardly advisable to allow a Jacobite to rule a Brit- 
ish colony. Accordingly a royal order suspended 
Penn's governmental authority and placed the 



70 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

province under Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of 
New York. He undertook to rule in dictatorial 
fashion, threatening to annex the province to 
New York, and as a consequence the Assembly 
had plenty of trouble with him. But two years 
later, 1694, the province was returned to Penn, 
who now appointed as Governor William Mark- 
ham, who had served as lieutenant-governor under 
Fletcher. 

Markham proceeded to be high-handed with 
the Assembly and to administer the government 
in the imperialistic style of Fletcher. But the 
Assembly soon tamed him and in 1696 actually 
worried out of him a new constitution, which 
became known as Markham's Frame, proved 
much more popular than the one Penn had given, 
and allowed the Assembly much more power. 
Markham had no conceivable right to assent to 
it and Penn never agreed to it; but it was lived 
under for the next four years until Penn returned 
to the province. While it naturally had opponents, 
it was largely regarded as entirely valid, and ap- 
parently with the understanding that it was to 
last until Penn objected to it. 

Penn had always been longing to return to 
Pennsylvania and live there for the rest of his 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 71 

life; but the terrible times of the Revolution of 
1688 in England and its consequences had held 
him back. Those difficulties had now passed. 
Moreover, William III had established free gov- 
ernment and religious liberty. No more Quakers 
were imprisoned and Penn's old occupation of 
securing their protection and release was gone. 

In the autumn of 1699 he sailed for Pennsyl- 
vania with his family and, arriving after a tedious 
three months' voyage, was well received. His po- 
litical scrapes and mistakes in England seemed 
to be buried in the past. He was soon at his old 
enjoyable life again, traveling actively about the 
country, preaching to the Quakers, and enlarging 
and beautifying his country seat, Pennsbury, on 
the Delaware, twenty miles above Philadelphia. 
As roads and trails were few and bad he usually 
traveled to and from the town in a barge which 
was rowed by six oarsmen and which seemed to 
give him great pride and pleasure. 

Two happy years passed away in this manner, 
during which Penn seems to have settled, not 
however without difficulty, a great deal of busi- 
ness with his people, the Assembly, and the Indian 
tribes. Unfortunately he got word from England 
of a bill in Parliament for the revocation of colonial 



72 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

charters and for the estabhshment of royal govern- 
ments in their place. He must needs return to 
England to fight it. Shortly before he sailed the 
Assembly presented him with a draft of a new 
constitution or frame of government which they 
had been discussing with him and preparing for 
some time. This he accepted, and it became 
the constitution under which Pennsylvania lived 
and prospered for seventy-five years, until the 
Revolution of 1776. 

This new constitution was quite liberal. The 
most noticeable feature of it was the absence of 
any provision for the large elective council or 
upper house of legislation, which had been very 
unpopular. The Assembly thus became the one 
legislative body. There was incidental reference 
in the document to a governor's council, although 
there was no formal clause creating it. Penn and 
his heirs after his death always appointed a small 
council as an advisory body for the deputy gover- 
nor. The Assembly was to be chosen annually 
by the freemen and to be composed of four repre- 
sentatives from each county. It could originate 
bills, control its own adjournments without in- 
terference from the Governor, choose its speaker 
and other officers, and judge of the qualifications 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 73 

and election of its own members. These were 
standard Anglo-Saxon popular parliamentary rights 
developed by long struggles in England and now 
established in Pennsylvania never to be relaxed. 
Finally a clause in the constitution permitted the 
Lower Counties, or Territories, under certain con- 
ditions to establish home rule. In 1705 the Terri- 
tories took advantage of this concession and set 
up an assembly of their own. 

Immediately after signing the constitution, in 
the last days of October, 1701, Penn sailed for 
England, expecting soon to return. But he be- 
came absorbed in affairs in England and never 
saw his colony again. This was unfortunate be- 
cause Pennsylvania soon became a torment to 
him instead of a great pleasure as it always seems 
to have been when he lived in it. He was a 
happy present proprietor, but not a very happy 
absentee one. 

The Church of England people in Pennsylvania 
entertained great hopes of this proposal to turn 
the proprietary colonies into royal provinces. 
Under such a change, while the Quakers might 
still have an influence in the Legislature, the 
Crown would probably give the executive offices 
to Churchmen. They therefore labored hard to 



74 THE QUAKER COLONIj:S 

discredit the Quakers. They kept harping on the 
absurdity of a set of fanatics attempting to govern 
a colony without a militia and without administer- 
ing oaths of office or using oaths in judicial proceed- 
ings. How could any one's life be safe from foreign 
enemies without soldiers, and what safeguard was 
there for life, liberty, and property before judges, 
jurors, and witnesses, none of whom had been 
sworn .^^ The Churchmen kept up their complaints 
for along time, but without effect in England. 

Penn was able to thwart all their plans. The 
bill to change the province into a royal one was 
never passed by Parliament. Penn returned to 
his court life, his preaching, and his theological 
writing, a rather curious combination and yet one 
by which he had always succeeded in protecting 
his people. He was a favorite with Queen Anne, 
who was now on the throne, and he led an expen- 
sive life which, with the cost of his deputy gover- 
nor's salary in the colony, the slowness of his quit- 
rent collections, and the dishonesty of the steward 
of his English estates, rapidly brought him into 
debt. To pay the government expense of a small 
colonial empire and at the same time to lead the 
life of a courtier and to travel as a preacher would 
have exhausted a stronger exchequer than Penn's, 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 75 

The contests between the different deputy gov- 
ernors, whom Penn or his descendants sent out, 
and the Quaker Legislature fill the annals of the 
province for the next seventy years, down to the 
Revolution. These quarrels, when compared with 
the larger national political contests of history, 
seem petty enough and even tedious in detail. 
But, looked at in another aspect, they are impor- 
tant because they disclose how liberty, self-govern- 
ment, repubhcanism, and many of the constitu- 
tional principles by which Americans now live 
were gradually developed as the colonies grew 
towards independence. 

The keynote to all these early contests was 
what may be called the fundamental principle of 
colonial constitutional law or, at any rate, of con- 
stitutional practice, namely, that the Governor, 
whether royal or proprietary, must always be kept 
poor. His salary or income must never become 
a fixed or certain sum but must always be depend- 
ent on the annual favor and grants of a legisla- 
ture controlled by the people. This belief was 
the foundation of American colonial liberty. The 
Assemblies, not only in Pennsylvania but in other 
colonies, would withhold the Governor's salary 
until he consented to their favorite laws. If he 



76 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

vetoed their laws, he received no salary. One of 
the causes of the Revolution in 1776 was the at- 
tempt of the mother country to make the gover- 
nors and other colonial officials dependent for their 
salaries on the Government in England instead of 
on the legislatures in the colonies. 

So the squabbles, as we of today are inclined 
to call them, went on in Pennsylvania — provin- 
cial and petty enough, but often very large and 
important so far as the principle which they in- 
volved was concerned. The Legislature of Penn- 
sylvania in those days was a small body composed 
of only about twenty-five or thirty members, most 
of them sturdy, thrifty Quakers. They could 
meet very easily anywhere — at the Governor's 
house, if in conference with him, or at the treas- 
urer's office or at the loan office, if investigating 
accounts. Beneath their broad brim hats and 
grave demeanor they were as Anglo-Saxon at heart 
as Robin Hood and his merry men, and in their 
ninety years of political control they built up as 
goodly a fabric of civil liberty as can be found in 
any community in the world. 

The dignified, confident message from a deputy 
governor, full of lofty admonitions of their duty 
to the Crown, the province, and the proprietor, 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 77 

is often met by a sarcastic, stinging reply of the 
Assembly. David Lloyd, the Welsh leader of the 
anti-proprietary party, and Joseph Wilcox, an- 
other leader, became very skillful in drafting these 
profoundly respectful but deeply cutting replies. 
In after years, Benjamin Franklin attained even 
greater skill. In fact, it is not unlikely that he 
developed a large measure of his world famous 
aptness in the use of language in the process of 
drafting these replies. The composing of these 
official communications was important work, for 
a reply had to be telling and effective not only 
with the Governor but with the people who learned 
of its contents at the coffeehouse and spread the 
report of it among all classes. There was not a 
little good-fellowship in their contests; and Frank- 
lin, for instance, tells us how he used to abuse a 
certain deputy governor all day in the Assembly 
and then dine with him in jovial intercourse in 
the evening. 

The Assembly had a very convenient way of 
accomplishing its purposes in legislation in spite 
of the opposition of the British Government. 
Laws when passed and approved by the deputy 
governor had to be sent to England for approval 
by the Crown within five years. But meanwhile 



78 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the people would live under the law for five years, 
and, if at the end of that time it was disallowed, 
the Assembly would reenact the measure and live 
under it again for another period.. 

The ten years after Penn's return to England 
in 1701 were full of trouble for him. Money re- 
turns from the province were slow, partly because 
England was involved in war and trade depressed, 
and partly because the Assembly, exasperated by 
the deputy governors he appointed, often refused 
to vote the deputy a salary and left Penn to bear 
all the expense of government. He was being 
rapidly overwhelmed with debt. One of his sons 
was turning out badly. The manager of his es- 
tates in England and Ireland, Philip Ford, was en- 
riching himself by the trust, charging compound 
interest at eight per cent every six months, and 
finally claiming that Penn owed him £14,000. 
Ford had rendered accounts from time to time, 
but Penn in his careless way had tossed them 
aside without examination. When Ford pressed 
for payment, Penn, still without making any in- 
vestigation, foolishly gave Ford a deed in fee 
simple of Pennsylvania as security. ^Afterwards 
he accepted from Ford a lease of the province, 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 79 

which was another piece of folly, for the lease 
could, of course, be used as evidence to show that 
the deed was an absolute conveyance and not 
intended as a mortgage. 

This unfortunate business Ford kept quiet dur- 
ing his lifetime. But on his death his widow and 
son made everything public, professed to be the 
proprietors of Pennsylvania, and sued Penn for 
£2000 rent in arrears. They obtained a judg- 
ment for the amount claimed and, as Penn could 
not pay, they had him arrested and imprisoned 
for debt. For nine months he was locked up in 
the debtors' prison, the "Old Bailey," and there 
he might have remained indefinitely if some of his 
friends had not raised enough money to compro- 
mise with the Fords. Isaac Norris, a prominent 
Quaker from Pennsylvania, happened at that time 
to be in England and exerted himself to set Penn 
free and save the province from further disgrace. 
After this there was a reaction in Penn's favor. 
He selected a better deputy governor for Pennsyl- 
vania. He wrote a long and touching letter to 
the people, reminding them how they had flour- 
ished and grown rich and free under his liberal 
laws, while he had been sinking in poverty. 

After that conditions improved in the affairs 



80 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

of Penn. The colony was better governed, and 
the anti-proprietary party almost disappeared. 
The last six or eight years of Penn's life were free 
from trouble. He had ceased his active work at 
court, for everything that could be accomplished 
for the Quakers in the way of protection and 
favorable laws had now^ been done. Penn spent 
his last years in trying to sell the government of 
his province to the Crown for a sum that would 
enable him to pay his debts and to restore his 
family to prosperity. But he was too particular 
in stipulating that the great principles of civil and 
religious liberty on which the colony had been 
established should not be infringed. He had seen 
how much evil had resulted to the rights of the 
people when the proprietors of the Jerseys parted 
with their right to govern. In consequence he 
required so many safeguards that the sale of 
Pennsylvania was delayed and delayed until its 
founder was stricken with paralysis. Penn lin- 
gered for some years, but his intellect was now 
too much clouded to make a valid sale. The 
event, however, was fortunate for Pennsylvania, 
which would probably otherwise have lost many 
valuable rights and privileges by becoming a 
Crown colony. 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 81 

On July 30, 1718, Penn died at the age of seventy- 
four. His widow became proprietor of the prov- 
ince, probably the only woman who ever became 
feudal proprietor of such an immense domain. 
She appointed excellent deputy governors and 
ruled with success for eight years until her death 
in 1726. In her time the ocean was free from 
enemy cruisers, and the trade of the colony grew 
so rapidly that the increasing sales of land and 
quitrents soon enabled her to pay off the mort- 
gage on the province and all the rest of her hus- 
band's debts. It was sad that Penn did not live 
to see that day, which he had so hoped for in his 
last years, when, with ocean commerce free from 
depredations, the increasing money returns from 
his province would obviate all necessity of selling 
the government to the Crown. 

With all debts paid and prosperity increasing, 
Penn's sons became very rich men. Death had 
reduced the children to three — John, Thomas, 
and Richard. Of these, Thomas became what 
may be called the managing proprietor, and the 
others were seldom heard of. Thomas lived in 
the colony nine years — 1732 to 1741 — studying 
its affairs and sitting as a member of the Council. 
For over forty years he was looked upon as the 



82 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

proprietor. In fact, he directed the great province 
for almost as long a time as his father had managed 
it. But he was so totally unlike his father that it is 
diflScult to find the slightest resemblance in fea- 
ture or in mind. He was not in the least disposed 
to proclaim or argue about religion. Like the rest 
of his family, he left the Quakers and joined the 
Church of England, a natural evolution in the case 
of many Quakers. He was a prosperous, accom- 
plished, sensible, cool-headed gentleman, by no 
means without ability, but without any inclination 
for setting the world on fire. He was a careful, 
economical man of business, which is more than 
can be said of his distinguished father. He saw no 
visions and cared nothing for grand speculations. 
Thomas Penn, however, had his troubles and 
disputes with the Assembly. They thought him 
narrow and close. Perhaps he was. That was 
the opinion of him held by Franklin, who led the 
anti-proprietary party. But at the same time 
some consideration must be given to the position 
in which Penn found himself. He had on his 
hands an empire, rich, fertile, and inhabited by 
liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons and by passive Ger- 
mans. He had to collect from their land the pur- 
chase money and quitrents rapidly rolling up in 



TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 83 

value with the increase of population into mil- 
lions of pounds sterling, for which he was respon- 
sible to his relatives. At the same time he had 
to influence the politics of the province, approve 
or reject laws in such a way that his family interest 
would be protected from attack or attempted con- 
fiscation, keep the British Crown satisfied, and 
see that the liberties of the colonists were not 
impaired and that the people were kept contented. 
It was not an easy task even for a clear-headed 
man like Thomas Penn. He had to arrange for 
treaties with the Indians and for the purchase of 
their lands in accordance with the humane ideas 
of his father and in the face of the Scotch-Irish 
thirst for Indian blood and the French desire to 
turn the savages loose upon the Anglo-Saxon set- 
tlements. He had to fight through the bound- 
ary disputes with Connecticut, Maryland, and 
Virginia, which threatened to reduce his empire 
to a mere strip of land containing neither Phila- 
delphia nor Pittsburgh. The controversy with 
Connecticut lasted throughout the colonial period 
and was not definitely settled till the close of the 
Revolution. The charter of Connecticut granted 
by the British Crown extended the colony west- 
ward to the Pacific Ocean and cut off the northern 



84 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

half of the tract afterwards granted to WilHam 
Penn. In pursuance of what they beheved to be 
their rights, the Connecticut people settled in the 
beautiful valley of Wyoming. They were there- 
upon ejected by force by the proprietors of Penn- 
sylvania; but they returned, only to be ejected 
again and again in a petty warfare carried on for 
many years. In the summer of 1778, the people 
of the valley were massacred by the Iroquois In- 
dians. The history of this Connecticut boundary 
dispute fills volumes. So does the boundary dis- 
pute with Maryland, which also lasted through- 
out the colonial period; the dispute with Virginia 
over the site of Pittsburgh is not so voluminous. 
All these controversies Thomas Penn conducted 
with eminent skill, inexhaustible patience, and 
complete success. For this achievement the State 
owes him a debt of gratitude. 

Thomas Penn was in the extraordinary position 
of having to govern as a feudal lord what was 
virtually a modern community. He was exercis- 
ing feudal powers three hundred years after all 
the reasons for the feudal system had ceased to 
exist; and he was exercising those powers and 
acquiring by them vast wealth from a people in a 
new and wild country w^hose convictions, both 



PENNSl 

Soale of 



s 



.Limit cff 
settled 



VI 



voodL. 




1 






PENNSYLVANIA 




TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS 85 

civil and religious, were entirely opposed to any- 
thing like the feudal system. It must certainly 
be put down as something to his credit that he 
succeeded so well as to retain control both of 
the political government and his family's increas- 
ing wealth down to the time of the Revolution 
and that he gave on the whole so little offense 
to a high-strung people that in the Revolution 
they allowed his family to retain a large part 
of their land and paid them liberally for what 
was confiscated. 

The wealth which came to the three brothers 
they spent after the manner of the time in country 
life. John and Richard do not appear to have 
had remarkable country seats. But Thomas pur- 
chased in 1760 the fine English estate of Stoke 
Park, which had belonged to Sir Christopher Hat- 
ton of Queen Elizabeth's time, to Lord Coke, 
and later to the Cobham family. Thomas's son 
John, grandson of the founder, greatly enlarged 
and beautified the place and far down into the 
nineteenth century it was one of the notable 
country seats of England. This John Penn also 
built another country place called Pennsylvania 
Castle, equally picturesque and interesting, on the 
Isle of Portland, of which he was Governor, 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

There was no great change in political conditions 
in Pennsylvania until about the year 1755. The 
French in Canada had been gradually developing 
their plans of spreading down the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi valleys behind the English colonies. They 
were at the same time securing alliances with the 
Indians and inciting them to hostilities against 
the English. But so rapidly were the settlers ad- 
vancing that often the land could not be purchased 
fast enough to prevent irritation and ill feeling. 
The Scotch-Irish and Germans, it has already been 
noted, settled on lands without the formality of 
purchase from the Indians. The Government, 
when the Indians complained, sometimes ejected 
the settlers but more often hastened to purchase 
from the Indians the land which had been occu- 
pied. The Importance of the British Plantations in 
America, published in 1731, describes the Indians 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 87 

as peaceful and contented in Pennsylvania but ir- 
ritated and unsettled in those other colonies where 
they had usually been illtreated and defrauded. 
This, with other evidence, goes to show that up to 
that time Penn's policy of fairness and good treat- 
ment still prevailed. But those conditions soon 
changed, as the famous Walking Purchase of 1737 
clearly indicated. 

The Walking Purchase had provided for the sale 
of some lands along the Delaware below the Lehigh 
on a line starting at Wrightstown, a few miles 
back from the Delaware not far above Trenton, 
and running northwest, parallel with the river, 
as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. 
The Indians understood that this tract would 
extend northward only to the Lehigh, which was 
the ordinary journey of a day and a half. The 
proprietors, however, surveyed the line before- 
hand, marked the trees, engaged the fastest walk- 
ers and, with horses to carry provisions, started 
their men at sunrise. By running a large part of 
the way, at the end of a day and a half these men 
had reached a point thirty miles beyond the Lehigh. 

The Delaware Indians regarded this measure- 
ment as a pure fraud and refused to abandon 
the Minisink region north of the Lehigh. The 



88 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

proprietors then called in the assistance of the Six 
Nations of New York, who ordered the Delawares 
off the Minisink lands. Though they obeyed, the 
Delawares became the relentless enemies of the 
white man and in the coming years revenged them- 
selves by massacres and murder. They also broke 
the control which the Six Nations had over them, 
became an independent nation, and in the French 
Wars revenged themselves on the Six Nations as 
well as on the white men. 

The congress which convened at Albany in 1754 
was an attempt on the part of the British Govern- 
ment to settle all Indian affairs in a general agree- 
ment and to prevent separate treaties by the differ- 
ent colonies; but the Pennsylvania delegates, by va- 
rious devices of compass courses which the Indians 
did not understand and by failing to notify and se- 
cure the consent of certain tribes, obtained a grant 
of pretty much the whole of Pennsylvania west 
of the Susquehanna. The Indians considered this 
procedure to be another gross fraud. It is to 
be noticed that in their dealings with Penn they 
had always been satisfied, and that he had always 
been careful that they should be duly consulted 
and if necessary be paid twice over for the land. 
But his sons were more economical, and as a 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 89 

result of the shrewd practices of the Albany pur- 
chase the Pennsylvania Indians almost immedi- 
ately went over in a body to the French and were 
soon scalping men, women, and children among 
the Pennsylvania colonists. 

It is a striking fact, however, that in all the 
after years of war and rapine and for generations 
afterwards the Indians retained the most distinct 
and positive tradition of Penn's good faith and 
of the honesty of all Quakers. So persistent, in- 
deed, was this tradition among the tribes of the 
West that more than a century later President 
Grant proposed to put the whole charge of the 
nation's Indian affairs in the hands of the Quakers. 

The first efforts to avert the catastrophe threat- 
ened by the alliance of the red man with the French 
were made by the provincial assemblies, which 
voted presents of money or goods to the Indians 
to offset similar presents from the French. The 
result was, of course, the utter demoralization of 
the savages. Bribed by both sides, the Indians 
used all their native cunning to encourage the 
bribers to bid against each other. So far as Penn- 
sylvania was concerned, feeling themselves cheated 
in the first instance and now bribed with gifts, 
they developed a contempt for the people who 



90 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

could stoop to such practices. As a result this 
contempt manifested itself in deeds hitherto un- 
known in the province. One tribe on a visit to 
Philadelphia killed cattle and robbed orchards 
as they passed. The delegates of another tribe, 
having visited Philadelphia and received £500 as 
a present, returned to the frontier and on their 
way back for another present destroyed the prop- 
erty of the interpreter and Indian agent, Conrad 
Weiser. They felt that they could do as they 
pleased. To make matters worse, the Assembly 
paid for all the damage done; and having started 
on this foolish business, they found that the list 
of tribes demanding presents rapidly increased. 
The Shawanoes and the Six Nations, as well as 
the Delawares, were now swarming to this new 
and convenient source of wealth. 

Whether the proprietors or the Assembly should 
meet this increasing expense or divide it between 
them, became a subject of increasing controversy. 
It was in these discussions that Thomas Penn, in 
trying to keep his family's share of the expense as 
small as possible, first got the reputation for close- 
ness which followed him for the rest of his life and 
which started a party in the province desirous of 
having Parliament abolish the proprietorship and 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 91 

put the province under a governor appointed by 
the Crown. 

The war with the French of Canada and their 
Indian alHes is of interest here only in so far as it 
affected the government of Pennsylvania. From 
this point of view it involved a series of contests 
between the proprietors and the Crown on the 
one side and the Assembly on the other. The pro- 
prietors and the Crown took advantage of every 
military necessity to force the Assembly into a 
surrender of popular rights. But the Assembly re- 
sisted, maintaining that they had the same right 
as the British Commons of having their money 
bills received or rejected by the Governor without 
amendment. Whatever they should give must be 
given on their own terms or not at all; and 
they would not yield this point to any necessities 
of the war. 

When Governor Morris asked the Assembly for 
a war contribution in 1754, they promptly voted 
£20,000. This was the same amount that Vir- 
ginia, the most active of the colonies in the war, 
was giving. Other colonies gave much less; New 
York, only £5000, and Maryland £6000. Mor- 
ris, however, would not assent to the Assembly's 
bill unless it contained a clause suspending its 



92 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

effect until the King's pleasure was known. This 
was an attempt to establish a precedent for giving 
up the Assembly's charter right of passing laws 
which need not be submitted to the King for five 
years and which in the meantime were valid. The 
members of the Assembly very naturally refused 
to be forced by the necessities of the war into 
surrendering one of the most important privileges 
the province possessed. It was, they said, as much 
their duty to resist this invasion of their rights 
as to resist the French. 

Governor Morris, besides demanding that the 
supply of £20,000 should not go into force until 
the King's pleasure was known, insisted that the 
paper money representing it should be redeem- 
able in five years. This period the Assembly con- 
sidered too short; the usual time was ten years. 
Five years would ruin too many people by fore- 
closures. Moreover, the Governor was attempt- 
ing to dictate the way in which the people should 
raise a money supply. He and the King had a 
right to ask for aid in war; but it was the right of 
the colony to use its own methods of furnishing 
this assistance. The Governor also refused to let 
the Assembly see the instructions from the pro- 
prietors under which he was acting. This was 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 93 

another attack upon their liberties and involved 
nothing less than an attempt to change their char- 
ter rights by secret instructions to a deputy gover- 
nor which he must obey at his peril. Several bills 
had recently been introduced in the English Par- 
liament for the purpose of making royal instruc- 
tions to governors binding on all the colonial 
assemblies without regard to their charters. This 
innovation, the colonists felt, would wreck all 
their liberties and turn colonial government into 
a mere despotism. 

The assemblies of all the colonies have been 
a good deal abused for delay in supporting the 
war and meanness in withholding money. But in 
many instances the delay and lack of money were 
occasioned by the grasping schemes of governors 
who saw a chance to gain new privileges for the 
Crown or a proprietor or to weaken popular gov- 
ernment by crippling the powers of the legislatures. 
The usual statement that the Pennsylvania As- 
sembly was slow in assisting the war because it 
was composed of Quakers is not supported by the 
facts. The Pennsylvania Assembly was not be- 
hind the rest. On this particular occasion, when 
their large money supply bill could not be passed 
without sacrificing their constitutional rights, they 



94 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

raised money for the war by appointing a com- 
mittee which was authorized to borrow £5000 on 
the credit of the Assembly. 

Other contests arose over the claim of the pro- 
prietors that their estates in the province were 
exempt from taxation for the war or any pur- 
pose. One bill taxing the proprietary estates along 
with others was met by Thomas Penn offering to 
subscribe £5000, as a free gift to the colony's 
war measures. The Assembly accepted this, and 
passed the bill without taxing the proprietary 
estates. It turned out, however, to be a shrewd 
business move on the part of Thomas Penn; for 
the £5000 was to be collected out of the quit- 
rents that were in arrears, and the payment of 
it was in consequence long delayed. The thrifty 
Thomas had thus saddled his bad debts on the 
province and gained a reputation for generosity 
at the same time. 

Pennsylvania, though governed by Quakers as- 
sisted by noncombatant Germans, had a better 
protected frontier than Maryland or Virginia; no 
colony, indeed, was at that time better protected. 
The Quaker Assembly did more than take care of 
the frontier during the war; it preserved at the 
same time constitutional rights in defense of which 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 95 

twenty-five years afterwards the whole continent 
fought the Revolution. The Quaker Assembly 
even passed two militia bills, one of which became 
law, and sent rather more than the province's full 
share of troops to protect the frontiers of New 
York and New England and to carry the invasion 
into Canada. 

General Braddock warmly praised the assist- 
ance which Pennsylvania gave him because, he 
said, she had done more for him than any of the 
other colonies. Virginia and Maryland promised 
everything and performed nothing, while Penn- 
sylvania promised nothing and performed every- 
thing. Commodore Spy thanked the Assembly 
for the large number of sailors sent his fleet at 
the expense of the province. General Shirley, in 
charge of the New England and New York cam- 
paigns, thanked the Assembly for the numerous 
recruits; and it was the common opinion at the 
time that Pennsylvania had sent more troops to 
the war than any other colony. In the first four 
years of the war the province spent for military 
purposes £210,567 sterling, which was a very con- 
siderable sum at that time for a community of 
less than 200,000 people. Quakers, though they 
hate war, will accept it when there is no escape. 



96 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

The old story of the Quaker who tossed a pirate 
overboard, saying, "Friend, thee has no business 
here," gives their point of view better than pages 
of explanation. Quaker opinion has not always 
been entirely uniform. In Revolutionary times in 
Philadelphia there was a division of the Quakers 
known as the Fighting Quakers, and their meeting 
house is still pointed out at the corner of Fourth 
Street and Arch. They even produced able mili- 
tary leaders: Colonel John Dickinson, General 
Greene, and General Mifflin in the Continental 
Army, and, in the War of 1812, General Jacob 
Brown, who reorganized the army and restored its 
failing fortunes after many officers had been tried 
and found wanting. 

There was always among the Quakers a ration- 
alistic party and a party of mysticism. The 
rationalistic party prevailed in Pennsylvania all 
through the colonial period. In the midst of the 
worst horrors of the French and Indian wars, 
however, the conscientious objectors roused them- 
selves and began preaching and exhorting what 
has been called the mystical side of the faith. 
Many extreme Quaker members of the Assembly 
resigned their seats in consequence. After the 
Revolution the spiritual party began gaining 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 97 

ground, partly perhaps because then the responsi- 
bilities of government and care of the great po- 
Htical and religious experiment in Pennsylvania 
were removed. The spiritual party increased so 
rapidly in power that in 1827 a split occurred 
which involved not a little bitterness, ill feeling, 
and litigation over property. This division into 
two opposing camps, known as the Hicksites and 
the Orthodox, continues and is likely to remain. 

Quaker government in Pennsylvania was put to 
still severer tests by the difficulties and disasters 
that followed Braddock's defeat. That unfortu- 
nate general had something over two thousand 
men and was hampered with a train of artillery 
and a splendid equipment of arms, tools, and sup- 
plies, as if he were to march over the smooth high- 
ways of Europe. When he came to drag all these 
munitions through the depths of the Pennsylvania 
forests and up and down the mountains, he found 
that he made only about three miles a day and 
that his horses had nothing to eat but the leaves 
of the trees. Washington, who was of the party, 
j&nally persuaded him to abandon his artillery 
and press forward with about fifteen hundred 
picked men. These troops, when a few miles 
from Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) , met about 



98 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

six hundred Indians and three hundred French 
coming from the fort. The EngHsh maintained a 
close formation where they were, but the French 
and Indians immediately spread out on their flanks, 
lying behind trees and logs which provided rests 
for their rifles and security for their bodies. This 
strategy decided the day. The English were shot 
down like cattle in a pen, and out of about fifteen 
hundred only four hundred and fifty escaped. The 
French and Indian loss was not much over fifty. 

This defeat of Braddock's force has become one 
of the most famous reverses in history; and it 
was made worse by the conduct of Dunbar who 
had been left in command of the artillery, baggage, 
and men in the rear. He could have remained 
where he was as some sort of protection to the 
frontier. But he took fright, burned his wagons, 
emptied his barrels of powder into the streams, 
destroyed his provisions, and fled back to Fort 
Cumberland in Maryland. Here the governors 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia as well as the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly urged him to stay. But deter- 
mined to make the British rout complete, he soon 
retreated to the peace and quiet of Philadelphia, 
and nothing would induce him to enter again the 
terrible forests of Pennsylvania. 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 99 

The natural result of the blunder soon followed. 
The French, finding the whole frontier of Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, and Virginia abandoned, 
organized the Indians under French officers and 
swept the whole region with a devastation of mas- 
sacre, scalping, and burning that has never been 
equaled. Hurons, Potawatomies, Ojibways, Otta- 
was, Mingoes, renegades from the Six Nations, 
together with the old treaty friends of Penn, the 
Dela wares and Shawanoes, began swarming east- 
ward and soon had killed more people than had 
been lost at Braddock's defeat. The onslaught 
reached its height in September and October. By 
that time all the outlying frontier settlers and their 
families had been killed or sent flying eastward to 
seek refuge in the settlements. The Indians even 
followed them to the settlements, reached the Sus- 
quehanna, and crossed it. They massacred the 
people of the village of Gnadenhutten, near Beth- 
lehem on the Lehigh, and established near by a 
headquarters for prisoners and plunder. Fami- 
lies were scalped within fifty miles of Philadelphia, 
and in one instance the bodies of a murdered fam- 
ily were brought into the town and exhibited in 
the streets to show the inhabitants how near the 
danger was approaching. 



100 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Nothing could be done to stem the savage tide. 
Virginia was suffering in the same way: the set- 
tlers on her border were slaughtered or were driven 
back in herds upon the more settled districts, and 
Washington, with a nominal strength of fifteen 
hundred who would not obey orders, was forced 
to stand a helpless spectator of the general flight 
and misery. There was no adequate force or army 
anywhere within reach. The British had been put 
to flight and had gone to the defense of New 
England and New York. Neither Pennsylvania 
nor Virginia had a militia that could withstand 
the French and their red allies. They could only 
wait till the panic had subsided and then see what 
could be done. 

One thing was accomplished, however, when the 
Pennsylvania Assembly passed a Quaker militia 
law which is one of the most curious legal docu- 
ments of its kind in history. It was most aptly 
worded, drafted by the master hand of Franklin. 
It recited the fact that the province had always 
been ruled by Quakers who were opposed to war, 
but that now it had become necessary to allow 
men to become soldiers and to give them every 
facility for the profession of arms, because the 
Assembly though containing a Quaker majority 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 101 

nevertheless represented all the people of the prov- 
ince. To prevent those who believed in war from 
taking part in it would be as much a violation of 
liberty of conscience as to force enlistments among 
those who had conscientious scruples against it. 
Nor would the Quaker majority have any right 
to compel others to bear arms and at the same 
time exempt themselves. Therefore a voluntary 
militia system was established under which a 
fighting Quaker, a Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, 
or anybody, could enlist and have all the military 
glory he could win. 

It was altogether a volunteer system. Two years 
afterwards, as the necessities of war increased, 
the Quaker Assembly passed a rather stringent 
compulsory militia bill; but the governor vetoed 
it, and the first law with its volunteer system re- 
mained in force. Franklin busied himself to en- 
courage enlistments under it and was very suc- 
cessful. Though a philosopher and a man of 
science, almost as much opposed to war as the 
Quakers and not even owning a shotgun, he was 
elected commander and led a force of about five 
hundred men to protect the Lehigh Valley. His 
common sense seems to have supplied his lack of 
military training. He did no worse than some 



102 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

professional soldiers who might be named. The 
valley was supposed to be in great danger since 
its village of Gnadenhutten had been burned and 
its people massacred. The Moravians, like the 
Quakers, had suddenly found that they were not 
as much opposed to war as they had supposed. 
They had obtained arms and ammunition from 
New York and had built stockades, and Franklin 
was glad to find them so well prepared when he 
arrived. He built small forts in different parts 
of the valley, acted entirely on the defensive, and 
no doubt checked the raids of the Indians at that 
point. They seem to have been watching him 
from the hilltops all the time, and any rashness on 
his part would probably have brought disaster upon 
him. After his force had been withdrawn, the In- 
dians again attacked and burned Gnadenhutten. 

The chain of forts, at first seventeen, afterwards 
increased to fifty, built by the Assembly on the 
Pennsylvania frontier was a good plan so far as 
it went, but it was merely defensive and by no 
means completely defensive, since Indian raiding 
parties could pass between the forts. They served 
chiefly as refuges for neighboring settlers. The 
colonial troops or militia, after manning the fifty 
forts and sending their quota to the operations 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 103 

against Canada by way of New England and New 
York, were not numerous enough to attack the 
Indians. They could only act on the defensive 
as Franklin's command had done. As for the 
rangers, as the small bands of frontiersmen acting 
without any authority of either governor or legis- 
lature were called, they were very efficient as indi- 
viduals but they accomplished very little because 
they acted at widely isolated spots. What was 
needed was a well organized force which could pur- 
sue the Indians on their own ground so far westward 
that the settlers on the frontier would be safe. The 
only troops which could do this were the British 
regulars with the assistance of the colonial militia. 
Two energetic efforts to end the war without 
aid from abroad were made, however, one by the 
pacific Quakers and the other by the combatant 
portion of the people. Both of these were success- 
ful so far as they went, but had little effect on the 
general situation. In the summer of 1756, the 
Quakers made a very earnest effort to persuade 
the two principal Pennsylvania tribes, the Dela- 
wares and Shawanoes, to withdraw from the 
French alliance and return to their old friends. 
These two tribes possessed a knowledge of the 
country which enabled them greatly to assist the 



104 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

French designs on Pennsylvania. Chiefs of these 
tribes were brought under safe conducts to Phila- 
delphia, where they were entertained as equals 
in the Quaker homes. Such progress, indeed, was 
made that by the end of July a treaty of peace 
was concluded at Easton eliminating those two 
tribes from the war. This has sometimes been 
sneered at as mere Quaker pacifism; but it was 
certainly successful in lessening the numbers and 
effectiveness of the enemy. 

The other undertaking was a military one, the 
famous attack upon Kittanning conducted by 
Colonel John Armstrong, an Ulsterman from Car- 
lisle, Pennsylvania, and the first really aggressive 
officer the province had produced. The Indians 
had two headquarters for their raids into the 
province, one at Logstown on the Ohio a few 
miles below Fort Duquesne, and the other at Kit- 
tanning or, as the French called it, Attique, about 
forty miles northeast. At these two points they 
assembled their forces, received ammunition and 
supplies from the French, and organized their 
expeditions. As Kittanning was the nearer, Arm- 
strong in a masterly maneuver took three hundred 
men through the mountains without being discov- 
ered and, by falling upon the village early in the 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 105 

morning, he effected a complete surprise. The 
town was set on fire, the Indians were put to 
flight, and large quantities of their ammunition 
were destroyed. But Armstrong could not follow 
up his success. Threatened by overwhelming num- 
bers, he hastened to withdraw. The effect which 
the fighting and the Quaker treaty had on the 
frontier was good. Incursions of the savages were, 
at least for the present, checked. But the root of 
the evil had not yet been reached, and the Indians 
remained massed along the Ohio, ready to break in 
upon the people again at the first opportunity. 

The following year, 1757, was the most depress- 
ing period of the war. The proprietors of Penn- 
sylvania took the opportunity to exempt their 
own estate from taxation and throw the burden 
of furnishing money for the war upon the colonists. 
Under pressure of the increasing success of the 
French and Indians and because the dreadful mas- 
sacres were coming nearer and nearer to Phila- 
delphia, the Quaker Assembly yielded, voted the 
largest sum they had ever voted to the war, and 
exempted the proprietary estates. The colony 
was soon boiling with excitement. The Church- 
men, as friends of the proprietors, were delighted 
to have the estates exempted, thought it a good 



106 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

opportunity to have the Quaker Assembly abol- 
ished, and sent petitions and letters and proofs of 
alleged Quaker incompetence to the British Gov- 
ernment. The Quakers and a large majority of the 
colonists, on the other hand, instead of consent- 
ing to their own destruction, struck at the root of 
the Churchmen's power by proposing to abolish 
the proprietors. And in a letter to Isaac Norris, 
Benjamin Franklin, who had been sent to Eng- 
land to present the grievances of the colonists, 
even suggested that "tumults and insurrections 
that might prove the proprietary government un- 
able to preserve order, or show the people to be 
ungovernable, would do the business immediately." 
Turmoil and party strife rose to the most excit- 
ing heights, and the details of it might, under cer- 
tain circumstances, be interesting to describe. But 
the next year, 1758, the British Government, by 
sending a powerful force of regulars to Pennsyl- 
vania, at last adopted the only method for ending 
the war. Confidence was at once restored. The 
Pennsylvania Assembly now voted the sufficient 
and, indeed, immense sum of one hundred thou- 
sand pounds, and offered a bounty of five pounds 
to every recruit. It was no longer a war of defense 
but now a war of aggression and conquest. Fort 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 107 

Duquesne on the Ohio was taken; and the next 
autumn Fort Pitt was built on its ruins. Then 
Canada fell, and the French empire in America 
came to an end. Canada and the Great West 
passed into the possession of the Anglo-Saxon race. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 

When the treaty of peace was signed in 1763, ex- 
tinguishing France's title to Canada and turning 
over Canada and the Mississippi Valley to the 
English, the colonists were prepared to enjoy all 
the blessings of peace. But the treaty of peace 
had been made with France, not with the red man. 
A remarkable genius, Pontiac, appeared among 
the Indians, one of the few characters, like Tecum- 
seh and Osceola, who are often cited as proof of 
latent powers almost equal to the strongest quali- 
ties of the white race. Within a few months he 
had united all the tribes of the West in a disci- 
pline and control which, if it had been brought 
to the assistance of the French six years earlier, 
might have conquered the colonies to the Atlantic 
seaboard before the British regulars could have 
come to their assistance. The tribes swept east- 
ward into Pennsylvania, burning, murdering, and 

108 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 109 

leveling every habitation to the ground with a 
thoroughness beyond anything attempted under 
the French alliance. The settlers and farmers fled 
eastward to the towns to live in cellars, camps, and 
sheds as best they could.' Fortunately the colo- 
nies retained a large part of the military organiza- 
tion, both men and oflScers, of the French War, 
and were soon able to handle the situation. De- 
troit and Niagara were relieved by water; and an 
expedition commanded by Colonel Bouquet, who 
had distinguished himself under General Forbes, 
saved Fort Pitt. 

At this time the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen sud- 
denly became prominent. They had been organ- 
izing for their own protection and were meeting 
with not a little success. They refused to join 
the expedition of regular troops marching west- 
ward against Pontiac's warriors, because they 
wanted to protect their own homes and because 
they believed the, regulars to be marching to sure 
destruction. Many of the regular troops were 
invalided from the West Indies, and the Scotch- 
Irish never expected to see any of them again. 
They believed that the salvation of Pennsylvania, 

^ For an account of Pontiac's conspiracy, see The Old Northwest, 
by Frederic A. Ogg (in The Chronicles of America). 



no THE QUAKER COLONIES 

or at least of their part of the province, depended 
entirely upon themselves. Their increasing num- 
bers and rugged independence were forming them 
also into an organized political party with decided 
tendencies, as it afterwards appeared, towards 
forming a separate state. 

The extreme narrowness of the Scotch-Irish, how- 
ever, misled them. The only real safety for the 
province lay in regularly constituted and strong 
expeditions, like that of Bouquet, which would 
drive the main body of the savages far westward. 
But the Scotch-Irish could not see this; and with 
that intensity of passion which marked all their 
actions they turned their energy and vengeance 
upon the Quakers and semicivilized Indians in 
the eastern end of the colony. Their preachers, 
who were their principal leaders and organizers, 
encouraged them in denouncing Quaker doctrine 
as a wicked heresy from which only evil could 
result. The Quakers had offended God from the 
beginning by making treaties of kindness with the 
heathen savages instead of exterminating them 
as the Scripture commanded: ''And when the 
Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou 
shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt 
make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 111 

them.'" The Scripture had not been obeyed; the 
heathen had not been destroyed; on the contrary, 
a systematic poHcy of covenants, treaties, and 
kindness had been persisted in for two genera- 
tions, and as a consequence, the Ulstermen said, 
the frontiers were now deluged in blood. They 
were particularly resentful against the small set- 
tlement of Indians near Bethlehem, who had 
been converted to Christianity by the Moravians, 
and another little village of half civilized basket- 
making Indians at Conestoga near Lancaster. 
The Scotch-Irish had worked themselves up into 
a strange belief that these small remnants were 
sending information, arms, and ammunition to the 
western tribes; and they seemed to think that it 
was more important to exterminate these little 
communities than to go with such expeditions as 
Bouquet's to the West. They asked the Governor 
to remove these civilized Indians and assured him 
that their removal would secure the safety of the 
frontier. When the Governor, not being able to 
find anything against the Indians, declined to re- 
move them, the Scotch-Irish determined to attend 
to the matter in their own fashion. 

Bouquet's victory at Bushy Run, much to the 
surprise of the Scotch-Irish, stopped Indian raids 



112 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

of any seriousness until the following spring. But 
in the autumn there were a few depredations, which 
led the frontiersmen to believe that the whole in- 
vasion would begin again. A party of them, there- 
fore, started to attack the Moravian Indians near 
Bethlehem; but before they could accomplish their 
object, the Governor brought most of the Indians 
down to Philadelphia for protection. Even there 
they were narrowly saved from the mob, for the 
hostility against them was spreading throughout 
the province. 

Soon afterwards another party of Scotch-Irish, 
ever since known as the "Paxton Boys," went at 
break of day to the village of the Conestoga In- 
dians and found only six of them at home — three 
men, two women, and a boy. These they instant- 
ly shot down, mutilated their bodies, and burned 
their cabins. As the murderers returned, they 
related to a man on the road what they had done, 
and when he protested against the cruelty of the 
deed, they asked, "Don't you believe in God and 
the Bible.?" The remaining fourteen inhabitants 
of the village, who were away selling brooms, were 
collected by the sheriff and put in the jail at Lan- 
caster for protection. The Paxtons heard of it 
and in a few days stormed the jail, broke down the 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 113 

doors, and either shot the poor Indians or cut 
them to pieces with hatchets. 

This was probably the first instance of lynch law 
in America. It raised a storm of indignation and 
controversy; and a pamphlet war persisted for 
several years. The whole province was immedi- 
ately divided into two parties. On one side were 
the Quakers, most of the Germans, and conserv- 
atives of every sort, and on the other, inclined 
to sympathize with the Scotch-Irish, were the 
eastern Presbyterians, some of the Churchmen, 
and various miscellaneous people whose vindic- 
tiveness towards all Indians had been aroused by 
the war. The Quakers and conservatives, who 
seem to have been the more numerous, assailed the 
Scotch-Irish in no measured language as a gang 
of ruffians without respect for law or order who, 
though always crying for protection, had refused 
to march with Bouquet to save Fort Pitt or to 
furnish him the slightest assistance. Instead of go- 
ing westward where the danger was and something 
might be accomplished, they had turned eastward 
among the settlements and murdered a few poor 
defenseless people, mostly women and children. 

Franklin, who had now returned from Eng- 
land, wrote one of his best pamphlets against the 



114 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Paxtons, the valorous, heroic Paxtons, as he called 
them, prating of God and the Bible, fifty-seven of 
whom, armed with rifles, knives, and hatchets, 
had actually succeeded in killing three old men, 
two women, and a boy. This pamphlet became 
known as the Narrative from the first word of its 
title, and it had an immense circulation. Like 
everything Franklin wrote, it is interesting reading 
to this day. 

One of the first effects of this controversy was 
to drive the excitable Scotch-Irish into a flame 
of insurrection not unlike the Whisky Rebellion, 
which started among them some years after the 
Revolution. They held tumultuous meetings de- 
nouncing the Quakers and the whole proprietary 
government in Philadelphia, and they organized 
an expedition which included some delegates to 
suggest reforms. For the most part, however, it 
was a well equipped little army variously esti- 
mated at from five hundred to fifteen hundred on 
foot and on horseback, which marched towards 
Philadelphia with no uncertain purpose. They 
openly declared that they intended to capture the 
town, seize the Moravian Indians protected there, 
and put them to death. They fully expected to 
be supported by most of the people and to have 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 115 

everything their own way. As they passed along 
the roads, they amused themselves in their rough 
fashion by shooting chickens and pigs, frighten- 
ing people by thrusting their rifles into windows, 
and occasionally throwing some one down and 
pretending to scalp him. 

In the city there was great excitement and 
alarm. Even the classes who sympathized with 
the Scotch-Irish did not altogether relish having 
their property burned or destroyed. Great prepa- 
rations were made to meet the expedition. Brit- 
ish regulars were summoned. Eight companies 
of militia and a battery of artillery were hastily 
formed. Franklin became a military man once 
more and superintended the preparations. On 
all sides the Quakers were enlisting; they had 
become accustomed to war; and this legitimate 
chance to shoot a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian was 
too much for the strongest scruples of their religion. 
It was a long time, however, before they heard 
the end of this zeal; and in the pamphlet war 
which followed they were accused of clamorously 
rushing to arms and demanding to be led against 
the enemy. 

It is amusing now to read about it in the old 
records. But it was serious enough at the time. 



116 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

When the Scotch-Irish army reached the Schuyl- 
kill River and found the fords leading to the city 
guarded, they were not quite so enthusiastic about 
killing Quakers and Indians. They went up the 
river some fifteen miles, crossed by an unopposed 
ford, and halted in Germantown ten miles north 
of Philadelphia. That was as far as they thought 
it safe to venture. Several days passed, during 
which the city people continued their preparations 
and expected every night to be attacked. There 
were, indeed, several false alarms. Whenever the 
alarm was sounded at night, every one placed 
candles in his windows to light up the streets. 
One night when it rained the soldiers were allowed 
to shelter themselves in a Quaker meeting house, 
which for some hours bristled with bayonets and 
swords, an incident of which the Presbyterian 
pamphleteers afterwards made much use for satire. 
On another day all the cannon were fired to let 
the enemy know what was in store for him. 

Finally commissioners with the clever, genial 
Franklin at their head, went out to Germantown 
to negotiate, and soon had the whole mighty dif- 
ference composed. The Scotch-Irish stated their 
grievances. The Moravian Indians ought not to 
be protected by the government, and all such 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 117 

Indians should be removed from the colony; the 
men who killed the Conestoga Indians should be 
tried where the supposed offense was committed 
and not in Philadelphia; the five frontier counties 
had only ten representatives in the Assembly 
while the three others had twenty-six — this should 
be remedied ; men wounded in border war should be 
cared for at public expense; no trade should be car- 
ried on with hostile Indians until they restored 
prisoners; and there should be a bounty on scalps. 
While these negotiations were proceeding, some 
of the Scotch-Irish amused themselves by practic- 
ing with their rifles at the weather vane, a figure 
of a cock, on the steeple of the old Lutheran church 
in German town — an unimportant incident, it is 
true, but one revealing the conditions and char- 
acter of the time as much as graver matters do. 
The old weather vane with the bullet marks upon 
it is still preserved. About thirty of these same 
riflemen were invited to Philadelphia and were 
allowed to wander about and see the sights of the 
town. The rest returned to the frontier. As for 
their list of grievances, not one of them was granted 
except, strange and sad to relate, the one which 
asked for a scalp bounty. The Governor, after 
the manner of other colonies, it must be admitted. 



118 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

issued the long desired scalp proclamation, which 
after offering rewards for prisoners and scalps, 
closed by saying, "and for the scalp of a female 
Indian fifty pieces of eight." William Penn's 
Indian policy had been admired for its justice and 
humanity by all the philosophers and statesmen of 
the world, and now his grandson, Governor of the 
province, in the last days of the family's control, 
was offering bounties for women's scalps. 

Franklin while in England had succeeded in 
havmg the proprietary lands taxed equally with 
the lands of the colonists. But the proprietors 
attempted to construe this provision so that their 
best lands were taxed at the rate paid by the 
people on their worst. This obvious quibble 
of course raised such a storm of opposition that 
the Quakers, joined by classes which had never 
before supported them, and now forming a large 
majority, determined to appeal to the Government 
in England to abolish the proprietorship and put 
the colony under the rule of the King. In the 
proposal to make Pennsylvania a Crown colony 
there was no intention of confiscating the posses- 
sions of the proprietors. It was merely the pro- 
prietary political power, their right to appoint the 
Governor, that was to be abolished. This right 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 119 

was to be absorbed by the Crown with payment 
for its value to the proprietors; but in all other 
respects the charter and the rights and liberties 
of the people were to remain unimpaired. Just 
there lay the danger. An act of Parliament would 
be required to make the change and, having once 
started on such a change, Parliament, or the party 
in power therein, might decide to make other 
changes, and in the end there might remain very 
little of the original rights and liberties of the 
colonists under their charter. It was by no means 
a wise move. But intense feeling on the subject 
was aroused. Passionate feeling seemed to have 
been running very high among the steady Quakers. 
In this new outburst the Quakers had the Scotch- 
Irish on their side, and a part of the Churchmen. 
The Germans were divided. But the majority 
enthusiastic for the change was very large. 

There was a new alinement of parties. The east- 
ern Presbyterians, usually more or less in sym- 
pathy with the Scotch-Irish, broke away from 
them on this occasion. These Presbyterians op- 
posed the change to a royal governor because they 
believed that it would be followed by the estab- 
lishment by law of the Church of England, with 
bishops and all the other ancient evils. Although 



120 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

some of the Churchmen joined the Quaker side, 
most of them and the most influential of them were 
opposed to the change and did good work in oppos- 
ing it. They were well content with their position 
under the proprietors and saw nothing to be gained 
under a royal governor. There were also not a 
few people who, in the increase of the wealth of 
the province, had acquired aristocratic tastes and 
were attached to the pleasant social conditions 
that had grown up round the proprietary gover- 
nors and their followers ; and there were also those 
whose salaries, incomes, or opportunities for wealth 
were more or less dependent on the proprietors re- 
taining the executive offices and the appointments 
and patronage. 

One of the most striking instances of a change 
of sides was the case of a Philadelphia Quaker, John 
Dickinson, a lawyer of large practice, a man of 
wealth and position, and of not a little colonial 
magnificence when he drove in his coach and four. 
It was he who later wrote the famous Farmer's 
Letters during the Revolution. He was a member 
of the Assembly and had been in politics for some 
years. But on this question of a change to royal 
government, he left the Quaker majority and op- 
posed the change with all his influence and ability. 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 121 

He and his father-in-law, Isaac Norris, Speaker of 
the Assembly, became the leaders against the 
change, and Franklin and Joseph Galloway, the 
latter afterwards a prominent loyalist in the Re- 
volution, were the leading advocates of the change. 

The whole subject was thoroughly thrashed out 
in debates in the Assembly and in pamphlets of very 
great ability and of much interest to students of co- 
lonial history and the growth of American ideas of 
liberty. It must be remembered that this was the 
year 1764, on the eve of the Revolution. British 
statesmen were planning a system of more rigorous 
control of the colonies; and the advisability of a 
stamp tax was under consideration. Information of 
all these possible changes had reached the colonies. 
Dickinson foresaw the end and warned the people. 
Franklin and the Quaker party thought there was 
no danger and that the mother country could be 
implicitly trusted. 

Dickinson warned the people that the British 
Ministry were starting special regulations for new 
colonies and "designing the strictest reformations 
in the old." It would be a great relief, he ad- 
mitted, to be rid of the pettiness of the proprie- 
tors, and it might be accomplished some time in 
the future; but not now. The proprietary system 



122 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

might be bad, but a royal government might be 
worse and might wreck all the liberties of the 
province, religious freedom, the Assembly's con- 
trol of its own adjournments, and its power of rais- 
ing and disposing of the public money. The 
ministry of the day in England were well known 
not to be favorably inclined towards Pennsylvania 
because of the frequently reported willfulness of 
the Assembly, on which the recent disturbances 
had also been blamed. If the King, Ministry, 
and Parliament started upon a change, they might 
decide to reconstitute the Assembly entirely, abol- 
ish its ancient privileges, and disfranchise both 
Quakers and Presbyterians. 

The arguments of Franklin and Galloway con- 
sisted principally of assertions of the good inten- 
tions of the mother country and the absurdity of 
any fear on the part of the colonists for their privi- 
leges. But the King in whom they had so much 
confidence was George III, and the Parliament 
which they thought would do no harm was the 
same one which a few months afterwards passed 
the Stamp Act which brought on the Revolu- 
tion. Franklin and Galloway also asserted that 
the colonies like Massachusetts, the Jerseys, and 
the Carolinas, which had been changed to royal 



DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT 123 

governments, had profited by the change. But 
that v/as hardly the prevailing opinion in those colo- 
nies themselves. Royal governors could be as petty 
and annoying as the Penns and far more tyran- 
nical. Pennsylvania had always defeated any at- 
tempts at despotism on the part of the Penn fam- 
ily and had built up a splendid body of liberal 
laws and legislative privileges. But governors with 
the authority and power of the British Crown be- 
hind them could not be so easily resisted as the 
deputy governors of the Penns. 

The Assembly, however, voted — twenty-seven 
to three — with Franklin and Galloway. In the 
general election of the autumn, the question was 
debated anew among the people and, though 
Franklin and Galloway were defeated for seats in 
the Assembly, yet the popular verdict was strong- 
ly in favor of a change, and the majority in the 
Assembly was for practical purposes unaltered. 
They voted to appeal to England for the change, 
and appointed Franklin to be their agent before 
the Crown and Ministry. He sailed again for Eng- 
land and soon was involved in the opening scenes 
of the Revolution. He was made agent for all 
the colonies and he spent many delightful years 
there pursuing his studies in science, dining with 



124 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

distinguished men, staying at country seats, and 
learning all the arts of diplomacy for which he 
afterwards became so distinguished. 

As for the Assembly's petition for a change to 
royal government, Franklin presented it but never 
pressed it. He, too, was finally convinced that 
the time was inopportune. In fact, the Assembly it- 
self before long began to have doubts and fears and 
sent him word to let the subject drop; and amid 
much greater events it was soon entirely forgotten. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 

New Jersey, Scheyichbi, as the Indians called it, 
or Nova Csesarea, as it was called in the Latin of 
its proprietary grant, had a history rather different 
from that of other English colonies in America. 
Geographically, it had not a few attractions. It 
was a good sized dominion surrounded on all sides 
but one by water, almost an island domain, se- 
cluded and independent. In fact, it was the only 
one of the colonies which stood naturally separate 
and apart. The others were bounded almost entirely 
by artificial or imaginary lines. 

It offered an opportunity, one might have sup- 
posed, for some dissatisfied religious sect of the 
seventeenth century to secure a sanctuary and 
keep off all intruders. But at first no one of the 
various denominations seems to have fancied it 
or chanced upon it. The Puritans disembarked 
upon the bleak shores of New England well suited 

125 



126 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

to the sternness of their religion. How different 
American history might have been if they had 
estabhshed themselves in the Jerseys! Could 
they, under those milder skies, have developed 
witchcraft, set up blue laws, and indulged in the 
killing of Quakers? After a time they learned 
about the Jerseys and cast thrifty eyes upon them. 
Their seafaring habits and the pursuit of whales 
led them along the coast and into Delaware Bay. 
The Puritans of New Haven made persistent ef- 
forts to settle the southern part of Jersey, on the 
Delaware near Salem. They thought, as their 
quaint old records show, that if they could once 
start a branch colony in Jersey it might become 
more populous and powerful than the New Haven 
settlement and in that case they intended to move 
their seat of government to the new colony. But 
their shrewd estimate of its value came too late. 
The Dutch and the Swedes occupied the Delaware 
at that time and drove them out. Puritans, how- 
ever, entered northern Jersey and, while they were 
not numerous enough to make it a thoroughly 
Puritan community, they largely tinged its thought 
and its laws, and their influence still survives. 

The difficulty with Jersey was that its seacoast 
was a monotonous line of breakers with dangerous 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 127 

shoal inlets, few harbors, and vast mosquito in- 
fested salt marshes and sandy thickets. In the 
interior it was for the most part a level, heavily 
forested, sandy, swampy country in its southern 
portions, and rough and mountainous in the north- 
ern portions. Even the entrance by Delaware 
Bay was so difficult by reason of its shoals that it 
was the last part of the coast to be explored. The 
Delaware region and Jersey were in fact a sort of 
middle ground far less easy of access by the sea 
than the regions to the north in New England and 
to the south in Virginia. 

There were only two places easy of settlement 
in the Jerseys. One was the open region of mead- 
ows and marshes by Newark Bay near the mouth 
of the Hudson and along the Hackensack River, 
whence the people slowly extended themselves 
to the seashore at Sandy Hook and thence south- 
ward along the ocean beach. This was East Jersey. 
The other easily occupied region, which became 
West Jersey, stretched along the shore of the lower 
Delaware from the modern Trenton to Salem, 
whence the settlers gradually worked their way 
into the interior. Between these two divisions lay 
a rough wilderness which in its southern portion 
was full of swamps, thickets, and pine barrens. So 



128 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

rugged was the country that the native Indians lived 
for the most part only in the two open regions 
already described. 

The natural geographical, geological, and even 
social division of New Jersey is made by drawing 
a line from Trenton to the mouth of the Hudson 
River. North of that line the successive terraces 
of the piedmont and mountainous region form 
part of the original North ximerican continent. 
South of that line the more or less sandy level 
region was once a shoal beneath the ocean; after- 
wards a series of islands; then one island with a 
wide sound behind it passing along the division 
line to the mouth of the Hudson. Southern Jersey 
was in short an island with a sound behind it very 
much like the present Long Island. The shoal 
and island had been formed in the far distant 
geologic past b}^ the erosion and washings from 
the lofty Pennsylvania mountains now worn down 
to mere stumps. 

The Delaware River flowed into this sound at 
Trenton. Gradually the Hudson end of the sound 
filled up as far as Trenton, but the tide from the 
ocean still runs up the remains of the Old Sound 
as far as Trenton. The Delaware should still be 
properly considered as ending at Trenton, for the 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 129 

rest of its course to the ocean is still part of Old 
Pensauken Sound, as it is called by geologists. 

The Jerseys originated as a colony in 1664. In 
1675 West Jersey passed into the control of the 
Quakers. In 1680 East Jersey came partially 
under Quaker influence. In August, 1664, Charles 
II seized New York, New Jersey, and all the 
Dutch possessions in America, having previously 
in March granted them to his brother the Duke 
of York. The Duke almost immediately gave to 
Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, members 
of the Privy Council and defenders of the Stuart 
family in the Cromwellian wars, the land between 
the Delaware River and the ocean, and bounded 
on the north by a line drawn from latitude 41° on 
the Hudson to latitude 41° 40' on the Delaware. 
This region was to be called, the grant said. Nova 
Caesarea, or New Jersey. The name was a com- 
pliment to Carteret, w^ho in the Cromwellian wars 
had defended the little isle of Jersey against the 
forces of the Long Parliament. As the American 
Jersey was then almost an island and geologically 
had been one, the name was not inappropriate. 

Berkeley and Carteret divided the province 
between them. In 1676 an exact division was 
attempted, creating the rather unnatural sections 



130 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

known as East Jersey and West Jersey. The 
first idea seems to have been to divide by a line 
running from Barnegat on the seashore to the 
mouth of Pensauken Creek on the Delaware just 
above Camden. This, however, would have made 
a North Jersey and a South Jersey, with the latter 
much smaller than the former. Several lines seem 
to have been surveyed at different times in the 
attempt to make an exactly equal division, which 
was no easy engineering task. As private land 
titles and boundaries were in some places depend- 
ent on the location of the division line, there 
resulted much controversy and litigation which 
lasted down into our own time. Without going 
into details, it is sufficient to say that the accept- 
able division line began on the seashore at Little 
Egg Harbor at the lower end of Barnegat Bay and 
crossed diagonally or northwesterly to the northern 
part of the Delaware River just above the Water 
Gap. It is known as the Old Province line, and 
it can be traced on any map of the State by 
prolonging, in both directions, the northeastern 
boundary of Burlington County. 

West Jersey, which became decidedly Quaker, 
did not remain long in the possession of Lord 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 131 

Berkeley. He was growing old; and, disappointed 
in his hopes of seeing it settled, he sold it, in 1673, 
for one thousand pounds to John Fenwick and 
Edward Byllinge, both of them old Cromwellian 
soldiers turned Quakers. That this purchase was 
made for the purpose of affording a refuge in 
America for Quakers then much imprisoned and 
persecuted in England does not very distinctly 
appear. At least there was no parade of it. But 
such a purpose in addition to profit for the pro- 
prietors may well have been in the minds of 
the purchasers. 

George Fox, the Quaker leader, had just re- 
turned from a missionary journey in America, in 
the course of which he had traveled through New 
Jersey in going from New York to Maryland. 
Some years previously in England, about 1659, 
he had made inquiries as to a suitable place for 
Quaker settlement and was told of the region north 
of Maryland which became Pennsylvania. But 
how could a persecuted sect obtain such a re- 
gion from the British Crown and the Government 
that was persecuting them.? It would require 
powerful influence at Court; nothing could then 
be done about it; and Pennsylvania had to wait 
until William Penn became a man with influence 



132 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

enough in 1681 to win it from the Crown. But 
here was West Jersey, no longer owned directly 
by the Crown and bought in cheap by two Quak- 
ers. It was an unexpected opportunity. Quak- 
ers soon went to it, and it was the first Quaker 
colonial experiment. 

V Byllinge and Fenwick, though turned Quakers, 
seem to have retained some of the contentious 
Cromwellian spirit of their youth. They soon 
quarreled over their respective interests in the 
ownership of West Jersey; and to prevent a law- 
suit, so objectionable to Quakers, the decision was 
left to William Penn, then a rising young Quaker 
about thirty years old, dreaming of ideal colonies 
in America. Penn awarded Fenwick a one-tenth 
interest and four hundred pounds. Byllinge soon 
became insolvent and turned over his nine-tenths 
interest to his creditors, appointing Penn and two 
other Quakers, Gawen Lawrie, a merchant of 
London, and Nicholas Lucas, a maltster of Hert- 
ford, to hold it in trust for them. Gawen Lawrie 
afterwards became deputy governor of East Jersey. 
Lucas was one of those thoroughgoing Quakers just 
released from eight years in prison for his religion/ 

» Myers, Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey, and 
Delaware, p. 180. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 133 

Fenwick also in the end fell into debt and, after 
selling over one hundred thousand acres to about 
fifty purchasers, leased what remained of his inter- 
est for a thousand years to John Edridge, a tanner, 
and Edmund Warner, a poulterer, as security for 
money borrowed from them. They conveyed this 
lease and their claims to Penn, Lawrie, and Lucas, 
who thus became the owners, as trustees, of pretty 
much all West Jersey. 

This was William Penn's first practical experi- 
ence in American affairs. He and his fellow trus- 
tees, with the consent of Fenwick, divided the 
West Jersey ownership into one hundred shares. 
The ninety belonging to Byllinge were offered for 
sale to settlers or to creditors of Byllinge who 
would take them in exchange for debts. The 
settlement of West Jersey thus became the distri- 
bution of an insolvent Quaker's estate among his 
creditor fellow religionists. 

Although no longer in possession of a title to 
land, Fenwick, in 1675, went out with some Quak- 
er settlers to Delaware Bay. There they founded 
the modern town of Salem, which means peace, 
giving it that name because of the fair and peace- 
ful aspect of the wilderness on the day they arrived. 
They bought the land from the Indians in the 



134 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

usual manner, as the Swedes and Dutch had so 
often done. But they had no charter or provi- 
sion for organized government. When Fenwick at- 
tempted to exercise poHtical authority at Salem, 
he was seized and imprisoned by Andros, Gover- 
nor of New York for the Duke of York, on the 
ground that, although the Duke had given Jersey 
to certain individual proprietors, the political con- 
trol of it remained in the Duke's deputy governor. 
Andros, who had levied a tax of five per cent on all 
goods passing up the Delaware, now established 
commissioners at Salem to collect the duties. 

This action brought up the whole question of 
the authority of Andros. The trustee proprietors 
of West Jersey appealed to the Duke of York, 
who was suspiciously indifferent to the matter, 
but finally referred it for decision to a prominent 
lawyer. Sir William Jones, before whom the Quaker 
proprietors of West Jersey made a most excellent 
argument. They showed the illegality, injustice, 
and wrong of depriving the Jerseys of vested po- 
litical rights and forcing them from the freeman 's 
right of making their own laws to a state of mere 
dependence on the arbitrary will of one man. 
Then with much boldness they declared that "To 
exact such an unterminated tax from English 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 135 

planters, and to continue it after so many repeat- 
ed complaints, will be the greatest evidence of 
a design to introduce, if the Crown should ever 
devolve upon the Duke, an unlimited government 
in old England." Prophetic words which the 
Duke, in a few years, tried his best to fulfill. But 
Sir William Jones deciding against him, he ac- 
quiesced, confirmed the political rights of West 
Jersey by a separate grant, and withdrew any 
authority Andros claimed over East Jersey. The 
trouble, however, did not end here. Both the 
Jerseys were long afflicted by domineering attempts 
from New York. 

Penn and his fellow trustees now prepared a 
constitution, or Concessions and Agreements y as 
they called it, for West Jersey, the first Quaker 
political constitution embodying their advanced 
ideas, establishing religious liberty, universal suf- 
frage, and voting by ballot, and abolishing im- 
prisonment for debt. It foreshadowed some of 
the ideas subsequently included in the Pennsyl- 
vania constitution. All these experiences were an 
excellent school for William Penn. He learned the 
importance in starting a colony of having a care- 
fully and maturely considered system of govern- 
ment. In his preparations some years afterwards 



136 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

for establishing Pennsylvania he avoided much of 
the bungling of the West Jersey enterprise. 

A better organized attempt was now made to 
establish a foothold in West Jersey farther up the 
river than Fen wick's colony at Salem. In 1677 
the ship Kent took out some 230 rather well-to-do 
Quakers, about as fine a company of broadbrims, 
it is said, as ever entered the Delaware. Some 
were from Yorkshire and London, largely creditors 
of Byllinge, who were taking land to satisfy their 
debts. They all went up the river to Raccoon 
Creek on the Jersey side, about fifteen miles below 
the present site of Philadelphia, and lived at first 
among the Swedes, who had been in that part of 
Jersey for some years and who took care of the 
new arrivals in their barns and sheds. These Quak- 
er immigrants, however, soon began to take care 
of themselves, and the weather during the winter 
proving mild, they explored farther up the river 
in a small boat. They bought from the Indians 
the land along the river shore from Oldman's Creek 
all the way up to Trenton and made their first 
settlements on the river about eighteen miles 
above the site of Philadelphia, at a place they 
at first called New Beverly, then Bridlington, and 
finally Burlington. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 137 

They may have chosen this spot partly because 
there had been an old Dutch settlement of a few 
families there. It had long been a crossing of 
the Delaware for the few persons who passed by 
land from New York or New England to Mary- 
land and Virginia. One of the Dutchmen, Peter 
Yegon, kept a ferry and a house for entertaining 
travelers. George Fox, who crossed there in 1671, 
describes the place as having been plundered by 
the Indians and deserted. He and his party swam 
their horses across the river and got some of the 
Indians to help them with canoes. 

Other Quaker immigrants followed, going to 
Salem as well as to Burlington, and a stretch of 
some fifty miles of the river shore became strongly 
Quaker. There are not many American towns 
now to be found with more of the old-time pictur- 
esqueness and more relics of the past than Salem 
and Burlington. 

Settlements were also started on the river 
opposite the site afterwards occupied by Phila- 
delphia, at Newton on the creek still called by 
that name; and another a little above on Coop- 
er's Creek, known as Cooper's Ferry until 1794. 
Since then it has become the flourishing town of 
Camden, full of shipbuilding and manufacturing, 



138 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

but for long after the Revolution it was merely a 
small village on the Jersey shore opposite Phila- 
delphia, sometimes used as a hunting ground and 
a place of resort for duelers and dancing parties 
from Philadelphia. 

The Newton settlers were Quakers of the Eng- 
lish middle class, weavers, tanners, carpenters, brick- 
layers, chandlers, blacksmiths, coopers, bakers, hab- 
erdashers, hatters, and linen drapers, most of them 
possessed of property in England and bringing 
good supplies with them. lake all the rest of the 
New Jersey settlers they were in no sense adven- 
turers, gold seekers, cavaliers, or desperadoes. 
They were well-to-do middle class English trades- 
people who would never have thought of leaving 
England if they had not lost faith in the stabil- 
ity of civil and religious liberty and the security 
of their property under the Stuart Kings. With 
them came servants, as they were called; that is, 
persons of no property, who agreed to work for 
a certain time in payment of their passage, to 
escape from England. All, indeed, were escaping 
from England before their estates melted away in 
fines and confiscations or their health or lives end- 
ed in the damp, foul air of the crowded prisons. 
Many of those who came had been in jail and had 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 139 

decided that they would not risk imprisonment 
a second time. Indeed, the proportion of West 
Jersey immigrants who had actually been in prison 
for holding or attending Quaker meetings or re- 
fusing to pay tithes for the support of the estab- 
lished church was large. For example, William 
Bates, a carpenter, while in jail for his religion, 
made arrangements with his friends to escape to 
West Jersey as soon as he should be released, and 
his descendants are now scattered over the United 
States. Robert Turner, a man of means, who 
settled finally in Philadelphia but also owned 
much land near Newton in West Jersey, had been 
imprisoned in England in 1660, again in 1662, 
again in 1665, and some of his property had been 
taken, again imprisoned in 1669 and more prop- 
erty taken; and many others had the same ex- 
perience. Details such as these make us realize 
the situation from which the Quakers sought to 
escape. So widespread was the Quaker movement 
in England and so severe the punishment imposed 
in order to suppress it that fifteen thousand fami- 
lies are said to have been ruined by the fines, 
confiscations, and imprisonments. 

Not a few Jersey Quakers were from Ireland, 
whither they had fled because there the laws 



140 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

against them were less rigorously administered. 
The Newton settlers were joined by Quakers from 
Long Island, where, under the English law as 
administered by the New York governors, they 
had also been fined and imprisoned, though with 
less severity than at home, for nonconformity 
to the Church of England. On arriving, the 
West Jersey settlers suffered some hardships dur- 
ing the year that must elapse before a crop could 
be raised and a log cabin or house built. During 
that period they usually lived, in the Indian man- 
ner, in wigwams of poles covered with bark, or in 
caves protected with logs in the steep banks of 
the creeks. Many of them lived in the villages 
of the Indians. The Indians supplied them all 
with corn and venison, and without this Indian 
help, they would have run serious risk of starving, 
for they were not accustomed to hunting. They 
had also to thank the Indians for having in past 
ages removed so much of the heavy forest growth 
from the wide strip of land along the river that 
it was easy to start cultivation. 

These Quaker settlers made a point of dealing 
very justly with the Indians and the two races 
lived side by side for several generations. There 
is an instance recorded of the Indians attending 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 141 

with much solemnity the funeral of a prominent 
Quaker woman, Esther Spicer, for whom they had 
acquired great respect. The funeral was held at 
night, and the Indians in canoes, the white men 
in boats, passed down Cooper's Creek and along 
the river to Newton Creek where the graveyard 
was, lighting the darkness with innumerable 
torches, a strange scene to think of now as having 
been once enacted in front of the bustling cities 
of Camden and Philadelphia. Some of the young 
settlers took Indian wives, and that strain of 
native blood is said to show itself in the features 
of several families to this day. 

Many letters of these settlers have been pre- 
served, all expressing the greatest enthusiasm for 
the new country, for the splendid river better than 
the Thames, the good climate, and their improved 
health, the immense relief to be away from the 
constant dread of fines and punishment, the chance 
to rise in the world, with large rewards for industry. 
They note the immense quantities of game, the 
Indians bringing in fat bucks every day, the veni- 
son better than in England, the streams full of 
fish, the abundance of wild fruits, cranberries, 
hurtleberries, the rapid increase of cattle, and the 
good soil. 



142 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

A few details concerning some of the interesting 
characters among these early colonial Quakers 
have been rescued from oblivion. There is, for 
instance, the pleasing picture of a young man and 
his sister, convinced Quakers, coming out together 
and pioneering in their log cabin until each found 
a partner for life. There was John Haddon, from 
whom Haddonfield is named, who bought a large 
tract of land but remained in England, while his 
daughter Elizabeth came out alone to look after 
it. A strong, decisive character she was, and 
women of that sort have always been encour- 
aged in independent action by the Quakers. She 
proved to be an excellent manager of an estate. 
The romance of her marriage to a young Quaker 
preacher, Estaugh, has been celebrated in Mrs. 
Maria Child's novel The Youthful Emigrant. The 
pair became leading citizens devoted to good works 
and to Quaker liberalism for many a year in 
Haddonfield. 

It was the ship Shields of Hull, bringing Quaker 
immigrants to Burlington, of which the story is 
told that in beating up the river she tacked close 
to the rather high bank with deep water frontage 
where Philadelphia was afterwards established; 
and some of the passengers remarked that it was 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 143 

a fine site for a town. The Shields, it is said, 
was the first ship to sail up as far as Burlington. 
Anchoring before Burlington in the evening, the 
colonists woke up next morning to find the river 
frozen hard so that they walked on the ice to their 
future habitations. 

Burlington was made the capital of West Jersey, 
a legislature was convened and laws were passed 
under the " concessions " or constitution of the pro- 
prietors. Salem and Burlington became the ports 
of the little province, which was well under way 
by 1682, when Penn came out to take possession 
of Pennsylvania. 

The West Jersey people of these two settlements 
spread eastward into the interior but were stopped 
by a great forest area known as the Pines, or Pine 
Barrens, of such heavy growth that even the 
Indians lived on its outer edges and entered it 
only for hunting. It was an irregularly shaped 
tract, full of wolves, bear, beaver, deer, and other 
game, and until recent years continued to at- 
tract sportsmen from all parts of the country. 
Starting near Delaware Bay, it extended parallel 
with the ocean as far north as the lower portion 
of the present Monmouth County and formed a 
region about seventy-five miles long and thirty 



144 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

miles wide. It was roughly the part of the old 
sandy shoal that first emerged from the ocean, 
and it has been longer above water than any other 
part of southern Jersey. The old name, Pine 
Barrens, is hardly correct because it implies some- 
thing like a desert, when as a matter of fact the 
region produced magnificent forest trees. 

The innumerable visitors who cross southern 
Jersey to the famous seashore resorts always pass 
through the remains of this old central forest and 
are likely to conclude that the monotonous low 
scrub oaks and stunted pines on sandy level soil, 
seen for the last two or three generations, were 
always there and that the primeval forest of colo- 
nial times was no better. But that is a mistake. 
The stunted growth now seen is not even second 
growth but in many cases fourth or fifth or more. 
The whole region was cut over long ago. The 
original growth, pine in many places, consisted 
also of lofty timber of oak, hickory, gum, ash, 
chestnut, and numerous other trees, interspersed 
with dogwood, sassafras, and holly, and in the 
swamps the beautiful magnolia, along with the 
valuable white cedar. De Vries, who visited the 
Jersey coast about 1632, at what is supposed to 
have been Beesley's or Somer's Point, describes 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 145 

high woods coming down to the shore. Even to- 
day, immediately back of Somer's Point, there is a 
magnificent lofty oak forest accidentally preserved 
by surrounding marsh from the destructive forest 
fires; and there are similar groves along the road 
towards Pleasantville. In fact, the finest forest 
trees flourish in that region wherever given a 
good chance. Even some of the beaches of Cape 
May had valuable oak and luxuriant growths of 
red cedar; and until a few years ago there were 
fine trees, especially hollies, surviving on Wild wood 
Beach. 

The Jersey white cedar swamps were, and still 
are, places of fascinating interest to the naturalist 
and the botanist. The hunter or explorer found 
them scattered almost everywhere in the old forest 
and near its edges, varying in size from a few square 
yards up to hundreds of acres. They were formed 
by little streams easily checked in their flow 
through the level land by decaying vegetation or 
dammed by beavers. They kept the water within 
the country, preventing all effects of droughts, 
stimulating the growth of vegetation which by 
its decay, throughout the centuries, was steadily 
adding vegetable mold or humus to the sandy 
soil. This process of building up a richer soil has 



146 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

now been largely stopped by lumbering, drainage, 
and fires. 

While there are many of these swamps left, the 
appearance of numbers of them has largely changed. 
When the white men first came, the great cedars 
three or four feet in diameter which had fallen 
centuries before often lay among the living trees, 
some of them buried deep in the mud and preserved 
from decay. They were invaluable timber, and 
digging them out and cutting them up became an 
important industry for over a hundred years. In 
addition to being used for boat building, they made 
excellent shingles which would last a lifetime. The 
swamps, indeed, became known as shingle mines, 
and it was a good description of them. An im- 
portant trade was developed in hogshead staves, 
hoops, shingles, boards, and planks, much of which 
went into the West Indian trade to be exchanged 
for rum, sugar, molasses, and negroes. ^ 

^ "Between the years 1740 and '50, the Cedar Swamps of the 
county [Cape May] were mostly located; and the amount of lumber 
since taken from them is incalculable, not only as an article of trade, 
but to supply the home demand for fencing and building material 
in the county. Large portions of these swamps have been worked 
a second and some a third time, since located. At the present time 
fl857] there is not an acre of original growth of swamp standing, 
having all passed away before the resistless sway of the speculator 
or the consumer." Beesley's Sketch of Cape May, p. 197. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 147 

The great forest has long since been lumbered to 
death. The pines were worked for tar, pitch, res- 
in, and turpentine until for lack of material the 
industry passed southward through the Carolinas 
to Florida, exhausting the trees as it went. The 
Christmas demand for holly has almost stripped 
the Jersey woods of these trees once so numerous. 
Destructive fires and frequent cutting keep the 
pine and oak lands stunted. Thousands of dol- 
lars' worth of cedar springing up in the swamps 
are sometimes destroyed in a day. But efforts 
to control the fires so destructive not only to this 
standing timber but to the fertility of the soil, 
and attempts to reforest this country not only for 
the sake of timber but as an attraction to those 
who resort there in search of health or natural 
beauty, have not been vigorously pushed. The 
great forest has now, to be sure, been partially 
cultivated in spots, and the sand used for large 
glass-making industries. Small fruits and grapes 
flourish in some places. At the northern end of 
this forest tract the health resort known as Lake- 
wood was established to take advantage of the 
pine air. A little to the southward is the secluded 
Brown's Mills, once so appealing to lovers of the 
simple life. 



148 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Checked on the east by the great forest, the West 
Jersey Quakers spread southward from Salem until 
they came to the Cohansey, a large and beautiful 
stream flowing out of the forest and wandering 
through green meadows and marshes to the bay. 
So numerous were the wild geese along its shores 
and along the Maurice River farther south that 
the first settlers are said to have killed them for 
their feathers alone and to have thrown the car- 
casses away. At the head of navigation of the 
Cohansey was a village called Cohansey Bridge, 
and after 1765 Bridgeton, a name still borne by 
a flourishing modern town. Lower down near the 
marsh was the village of Greenwich, the principal 
place of business up to the year 1800, with a for- 
eign trade. Some of the tea the East India Com- 
V pany tried to force on the colonists during the 
Revolution was sent there and was duly rejected. 
It is still an extremely pretty village, with its 
broad shaded streets like a New England town and 
its old Quaker meeting house. In fact, not a few 
New Englanders from Connecticut, still infatuated 
with southern Jersey in spite of the rebuffs re- 
ceived in ancient times from Dutch and Swedes, 
finally settled near the Cohansey after it came 
under control of the more amiable Quakers. There 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 149 

was also one place called after Fairfield in Con- 
necticut and another called New England Town. 
The first churches of this region were usually 
built near running streams so that the congrega- 
tion could procure water for themselves and their 
horses. Of one old Presbyterian Church it used to 
be said that no one had ever ridden to it in a wheeled 
vehicle. Wagons and carriages were very scarce 
until after the Revolution. Carts for occasions 
of ceremony as well as utility were used before 
wagons and carriages. For a hundred and fifty 
years the horse's back was the best form of con- 
veyance in the deep sand of the trails and roads. 
This was true of all southern Jersey. Pack horses 
and the backs of Indian and negro slaves were 
the principal means of transportation on land. 
The roads and trails, in fact, were so few and so 
heavy with sand that water travel was very much 
developed. The Indian dugout canoe was adopted 
and found faster and better than heavy English 
rowboats. As the province was almost surrounded 
by water and was covered with a network of creeks 
and channels, nearly all the villages and towns were 
situated on tidewater streams, and the dugout ca- 
noe, modified and improved, was for several gener- 
ations the principal means of communication. 



1,50 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Most of the old roads in New Jersey followed 
Indian trails. There was a trail, for example, 
from the modern Camden opposite Philadelphia, 
following up Cooper's Creek past Berlin, then 
called Long-a-coming, crossing the watershed, 
and then following Great Egg Harbor River to 
the seashore. Another trail, long used by the 
settlers, led from Salem up to Camden, Burlington, 
and Trenton, going round the heads of streams. 
It was afterwards abandoned for the shorter route 
obtained by bridging the streams nearer their 
mouths. This old trail also extended from the 
neighborhood of Trenton to Perth Amboy near 
the mouth of the Hudson, and thus, by supple- 
menting the lower routes, made a trail nearly the 
whole length of the province. 

As a Quaker refuge, West Jersey never attained 
the success of Pennsylvania. The poHtical disturb- 
ances and the continually threatened loss of self- 
government in both the Jerseys were a serious 
deterrent to Quakers who, above all else, prized 
rights which they found far better secured in 
Pennsylvania. In 1702, when the two Jerseys 
were united into one colony under a government 
appointed by the Crown, those rights were more 
restricted than ever and all hopes of West Jersey 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY 151 

becoming a colony under complete Quaker control 
were shattered. Under Governor Cornbury, the 
English law was adopted and enforced, and the 
Quakers were disqualified from testifying in court 
unless they took an oath and were prohibited 
from serving on juries or holding any ofiice of 
trust. Cornbury's judges wore scarlet robes, 
powdered wigs, cocked hats, gold lace, and side 
arms; they were conducted to the courthouse by 
the sheriff's cavalcade and opened court with great 
parade and ceremony. Such a spectacle of pomp 
was sufficient to divert the flow of Quaker im- 
migrants to Pennsylvania, where the government 
was entirely in Quaker hands and where plain 
and serious ways gave promise of enduring and 
unmolested prosperity. 

The Quakers had altogether thirty meeting 
houses in West Jersey and eleven in East Jersey, 
which probably shows about the proportion of 
Quaker influence in the two Jerseys. Many of 
them have since disappeared; some of the early 
buildings, to judge from the pictures, were of wood 
and not particularly pleasing in appearance. They 
were makeshifts, usually intended to be replaced by 
better buildings. Some substantial brick buildings 
of excellent architecture have survived, and their 



152 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

plainness and simplicity, combined with excellent 
proportions and thorough construction, are clearly 
indicative of Quaker character. There is a particu- 
larly interesting one in Salem with a magnificent 
old oak beside it, another in the village of Green- 
wich on the Cohansey farther south, and another 
at Cross wicks near Trenton. 

In West Jersey near Mount Holly was born and 
lived John Woolman, a Quaker who became emi- 
nent throughout the English speaking world for 
the simplicity and loftiness of his religious thought 
as well as for his admirable style of expression. 
His Journal, once greatly and even extravagantly 
admired, still finds readers. "Get the writings 
of John Woolman by heart," said Charles Lamb, 
"and love the early Quakers." He was among 
the Quakers one of the first and perhaps the first 
really earnest advocate of the abolition of slavery. 
The scenes of West Jersey and the writings of 
Woolman seem to belong together. Possibly a 
feeling for the simplicity of those scenes and their 
life led Walt Whitman, who grew up on Long 
Island under Quaker influence, to spend his last 
years at Camden, in West Jersey. His profound 
democracy, which was very Quaker-like, was more 
at home there perhaps than anywhere else. 



CHAPTER IX 

PLANTERS AND TRADERS OF SOUTHERN JERSEY 

Most of the colonies in America, especially the 
stronger ones, had an aristocratic class, which was 
often large and powerful, as in the case of Virginia, 
and which usually centered around the governor, 
especially if he were appointed from England by 
the Crown or by a proprietor. But there was 
very little of this social distinction in New Jersey. 
Her political life had been too much broken up, 
and she had been too long dependent on the gov- 
ernors of New York to have any of those pretty 
little aristocracies with bright colored clothes, and 
coaches and four, flourishing within her bound- 
aries. There seems to have been a faint sugges- 
tion of such social pretensions under Governor 
Franklin just before the Revolution. He was 
beginning to live down the objections to his ille- 
gitimate birth and Toryism and by his entertain- 
ments and manner of living was creating a social 

153 



154 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

following. There is said also to have been some- 
thing a little like the beginning of an aristocracy 
among the descendants of the Dutch settlers who 
had ancestral holdings near the Hudson; but this 
amounted to very little. 

Class distinctions were not so strongly marked 
in New Jersey as in some other colonies. There 
grew up in southern Jersey, however, a sort of 
aristocracy of gentlemen farmers, who owned 
large tracts of land and lived in not a little style 
in good houses on the small streams. 

The northern part of the province, largely settled 
and influenced by New Englanders, was like New 
England a land of vigorous concentrated town life 
and small farms. The hilly and mountainous nature 
of the northern section naturally led to small hold- 
ings of land. But in southern Jersey the level sandy 
tracts of forest were often takv^n up in large areas. 
In the absence of manuf actui ing, large acreage 
naturally became, as in Virginia and Maryland, 
the only mark of wealth and social distinction. 
The great landlord was looked up to by the lesser 
fry. The Quaker rule of discountenancing marry- 
ing out of meeting tended to keep a large acreage 
in the family and to make it larger by marriage. 
A Quaker of broad acres would seek for his daughter 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 155 

a young man of another landholding Quaker family 
and would thus join the two estates. 

There was a marked difference between East 
Jersey and West Jersey in county organization. 
In West Jersey the people tended to become 
planters; their farms and plantations somewhat 
like those of the far South; and the political unit 
of government was the county. In East Jersey 
the town was the starting point and the county 
marked the boundaries of a collection of towns. 
This curious difference, the result of soil, climate, 
and methods of life, shows itself in other States 
wherever South and North meet. Illinois is an 
example, where the southern part of the State is 
governed by the county system, and the northern 
part by the town system. 

The lumberman, too, in clearing off the prime- 
val forest and selling the timber, usually dealt in 
immense acreage. Some families, it is said, can 
be traced steadily proceeding southward as they 
stripped off the forest, and started sawmills and 
gristmills on the little streams that trickled from 
the swamps, and like beavers making with their 
dams those pretty ponds which modern lover? of 
the picturesque are now so eager to find. A good 
deal of the lumbering in the interior pines tract 



156 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

was carried on by persons who leased the premises 
from owners who Hved on plantations along the 
Delaware or its tributary streams. These opera- 
tions began soon after 1700. Wood roads were 
cut into the Pines, sawmills were started, and con- 
stant use turned some of these wood roads into the 
highways of modern times. 

There was a speculative tinge in the operations 
of this landed aristocracy. Like the old tobacco 
raising aristocracy of Virginia and Maryland, they 
were inclined to go from tract to tract, skinning 
what they could from a piece of deforested land 
and then seeking another virgin tract. The rough- 
est methods were used; wooden plows, brush har- 
rows, straw collars, grapevine harness, and poor 
shelter for animals and crops; but were the Vir- 
ginia methods any better.^ In these operations 
there was apparently a good deal of sudden profit 
and mushroom prosperity accompanied by a good 
deal of debt and insolvency. In this, too, they 
were like the Virginians and Carolinians. There 
seem to have been also a good many slaves in West 
Jersey, brought, as in the southern colonies, to 
work on the large estates, and this also, no doubt, 
helped to foster the aristocratic feeling. 

The best days of the Jersey gentlemen farmers 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 157 

came probably when they could no longer move 
from tract to tract. They settled down and enjoyed 
a very plentiful, if rude, existence on the products 
of their land, game, and fish, amid a fine climate 
— with mosquitoes enough in summer to act as 
a counterirritant and prevent stagnation from too 
much ease and prosperity. After the manner of 
colonial times, they wove their own clothes from 
the wool of their own sheep and made their own 
implements, furniture, and simple machinery. 
There are still to be found fascinating traces of 
this old life in out-of-the-way parts of southern 
Jersey. To run upon old houses among the Jersey 
pines still stored with Latin classics and old edi- 
tions of Shakespeare, Addison, or Samuel John- 
son, to come across an old mill with its machin- 
ery, cogwheels, flywheels, and all, made of wood, 
to find people who make their own oars, and the 
handles of their tools from the materials fur- 
nished by their own forest, is now unfortunately 
a refreshment of the spirit that is daily becoming 
rarer. 

This condition of material and social self-suflB- 
ciency lasted in places long after the Revolution. 
It was a curious little aristocracy — a very faint 
and faded one, lacking the robustness of the far 



158 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

southern type, and lacking indeed the real essen- 
tial of an aristocracy, namely political power. 
Moreover, although there were slaves in New 
Jersey, there were not enough of them to exalt 
the Jersey gentlemen farmers into such self-suf- 
ficient lords and masters as the Virginian and 
Carolinian planters became. 

To search out the remains of this stage of Ameri- 
can history, however, takes one up many pleasant 
streams flowing out of the forest tract to the Dela- 
ware on one side or to the ocean on the other. 
This topographical formation of a central ridge or 
watershed of forest and swamp was a repetition 
of the same formation in the Delaware peninsula, 
which like southern Jersey had originally been 
a shoal and then an island. The Jersey water- 
shed, with its streams abounding in wood duck 
and all manner of wild life, must have been in its 
primeval days as fascinating as some of the streams 
of the Florida cypress swamps. Toward the ocean. 
Wading River, the Mullica, the Tuckahoe, Great 
Egg; and on the Delaware side the Maurice, 
Cohansey, Salem Creek, Oldman's, Raccoon, Man- 
tua, Woodberry, Timber, and the Rancocas, still 
possess attraction. Some of them, on opposite j 
sides of the divide, are not far apart at their' 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 159 

sources in the old forest tract; so that a canoe can 
be transported over the few miles and thus traverse 
the State. One of these trips up Timber Creek 
from the Delaware and across only eight miles of 
land to the headwaters of Great Egg Harbor 
River and thence down to the ocean, thus cutting 
South Jersey in half, is a particularly romantic 
one. The heavy woods and swamps of this se- 
cluded route along these forest shadowed streams 
are apparently very much as they were three hun- 
dred years ago. 

The water in all these streams, particularly in 
their upper parts, owing to the sandy soil, is very 
clean and clear and is often stained by the cedar 
roots in the swamps a clear brown, sometimes 
almost an amber color. One of the streams, the 
Rancocas, with its many windings to Mount Holly 
and then far inland to Brown's Mills, seems to 
be the favorite with canoemen and is probably 
without an equal in its way for those who love 
the Indian's gift that brings us so close to nature. 

The spread of the Quaker settlements along 
Delaware Bay to Cape May was checked by the 
Maurice River and its marshes and by the Great 
Cedar Swamp which crossed the country from 



160 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Delaware Bay to the ocean and thus made of the 
Cape May region a sort of island. The Cape 
May region, it is true, was settled by Quakers, 
but most of them came from Long Island rather 
than from the settlements on the Delaware. They 
had followed whale fishing on Long Island and in 
pursuit of that occupation some of them had mi- 
grated to Cape May where whales were numerous 
not far off shore. 

The leading early families of Cape May, the 
Townsends, Stillwells, Corsons, Leamings, Lud- 
lams, Spicers, and Cresses, many of whose descend- 
ants still live there, were Quakers of the Long 
Island strain. The ancestor of the Townsend 
family came to Cape May because he had been 
imprisoned and fined and threatened with worse 
under the New York government for assisting 
his fellow Quakers to hold meetings. Probably 
the occasional severity of the administration of the 
New York laws against Quakers, which were the 
same as those of England, had as much to do as 
had the whales with the migration to Cape May. 
This Quaker civilization extended from Cape May 
up as far as Great Egg Harbor where the Great 
Cedar Swamp joined the seashore. Quaker meet- 
ing houses were built at Cape May, Galloway, 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 161 

Tuckahoe, and Great Egg. All have been aban- 
doned and the buildings themselves have disap- 
peared, except that of the Cape May meeting, called 
the Old Cedar Meeting, at Seaville; and it has 
no congregation. The building is kept in repair 
by members of the Society from other places. 

Besides the Quakers, Cape May included a 
number of New Haven people, the first of whom 
came there as early as 1640 under the leadership 
of George Lamberton and Captain Turner, seeking 
profit in whale fishing. They were not driven out 
by the Dutch and Swedes, as happened to their 
companions who attempted to settle higher up 
the river at Salem and the Schuylkill. About 
one-fifth of the old family names of Cape May 
and New Haven are similar, and there is supposed 
to be not a little New England blood not only 
in Cape May but in the neighboring counties 
of Cumberland and Salem. While the first New 
Haven whalers came to Cape May in 1640, it is 
probable that for a long time they only sheltered 
their vessels there, and none of them became 
permanent settlers until about 1685. 

Scandinavians contributed another element to 
the population of the Cape May region. Very 
little is definitely known about this settlement. 



162 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

but the Swedish names in Cape May and Cum- 
berland counties seem to indicate a migration of 
Scandinavians from Wilmington and Tinicum. 

Great Egg Harbor, which formed the northern 
part of the Cape May settlement, was named from 
the immense numbers of wild fowl, swans, ducks, 
and water birds that formerly nested there every 
summer and have now been driven to Canada 
or beyond. Little Egg Harbor farther up the 
coast was named for the same reason as well as 
Egg Island, of three hundred acres in Delaware 
Bay, since then eaten away by the tide. The 
people of the district had excellent living from 
the eggs as well as from the plentiful fowl, fish, 
and oysters. 

Some farming was done by the inhabitants of 
Cape May; and many cattle, marked with brands 
but in a half wild state, were kept out on the un- 
inhabited beaches which have now become seaside 
summer cities. Some of the cattle were still run- 
ning wild on the beaches down to the time of the 
Civil War. The settlers "mined" the valuable 
white cedar from the swamps for shingles and 
boards, leaving great "pool holes" in the swamps 
which even today sometimes trap the unwary 
sportsman. The women knitted innumerable 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 163 

mittens and also made wampum or Indian money 
from the clam and oyster shells, an important 
means of exchange in the Indian trade all over the 
colonies, and even to some extent among the 
colonists themselves. The Cape May people built 
sloops for carrying the white cedar, the mittens, 
oysters, and wampum to the outside world. They 
sold a great deal of their cedar in Long Island, 
Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Philadelphia fi- 
nally became their market for oysters and also for 
lumber, corn, and the whalebone and oil. Their 
sloops also traded to the southern colonies and even 
to the West Indies. 

They were an interesting little community, 
these Cape May people, very isolated and depend- 
ent on the water and on their boats, for they were 
completely cut off by the Great Cedar Swamp 
which stretched across the point and separated 
them from the rest of the coast. This troublesome 
swamp was not bridged for many years ; and even 
then the roads to it were long, slow, and too 
sandy for transporting anything of much bulk. 

Next above Cape May on the coast was another 
isolated patch of civilization which, while not an 
island, was nevertheless cut off on the south by 
Great Egg Harbor with its river and marshes, and 



164 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

on the north by Little Egg Harbor with the MulKca 
River and its marshes extending far inland. The 
people in this district also lived somewhat to them- 
selves. To the north lay the district which extended 
to Sandy Hook, also with its distinct set of people. 

The people of the Cape became in colonial times 
clever traders in various pursuits. Although in 
one sense they were as isolated as islanders, their 
adventurous life on the sea gave them breadth of 
view. By their thrift and in innumerable shrewd 
and persistent ways they amassed competencies and 
estates for their families. Aaron Leaming, for ex- 
ample, who died in 1780, left an estate of nearly 
$1,000,000. Some kept diaries which have become 
historically valuable in showing not only their his- 
tory but their good education and the peculiar cast 
of their mind for keen trading as well as their rigid 
economy and integrity. 

One character, Jacob Spicer, a prosperous colo- 
nial, insisted on having everything made at home 
by his sons and daughters — shoes, clothes, leather 
breeches, wampum, even shoe thread — calculating 
the cost of everything to a fraction and economiz- 
ing to the last penny of money and the last second 
of time. Yet in the course of a year he used "fifty- 
two gallons of rum, ten of wine, and two barrels of 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 165 

cyder." Apparently in those days hard labor and 
hard drinking went well together. 

The Cape May people, relying almost entirely 
on the water for communication and trade, soon 
took to piloting vessels in the Delaware River, and 
some of them still follow this occupation. They 
also became skillful sailors and builders of small 
craft, and it is not surprising to learn that Jacocks 
Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the cen- 
terboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer 
to the wind. They are said to have taken out a 
patent for this invention and are given the credit 
of being the originators of the idea. But the 
device was known in England in 1774, was intro- 
duced in Massachusetts in the same year, and 
may have been used long before by the Dutch. 
The need of it, however, was no doubt strongly 
impressed upon the Cape May people by the diffi- 
culties which their little sloops experienced in 
beating home against contrary winds. Some of 
them, indeed, spent weeks in sight of the Cape, un- 
able to make it. One sloop, the Nanay, seventy-two 
days from Demarara, hung off and on for forty- 
three days from December 25, 1787, to Febru- 
ary 6, 1788, and was driven off fifteen times be- 
fore she finally got into Hereford Inlet. Sometimes 



166 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

better sailing craft had to go out and bring in such 
distressed vessels. The early boats were no doubt 
badly constructed; but in the end apprentice- 
ship to dire necessity made the Cape May sailors 
masters of seamanship and the windward art.' 

Wilson, the naturalist, spent a great deal of 
time in the Cape May region, because of the great 
variety of birds to be found there. Southern 
types, like the Florida egret, ventured even so 
far north, and it was a stopping place for migrat- 
ing birds, notably woodcock, on their northern 
and southern journeys. Men of the stone age 
had once been numerous in this region, as the 
remains of village plats and great shell heaps bore 
witness. It was a resting point for all forms of 
life. That much traveled, adventurous gentleman 
of the sea. Captain Kidd, according to popular 
legend, was a frequent visitor to this coast. 

In later times, beginning in 1801, the Cape 
became one of the earliest of the summer resorts. 
The famous Commodore Decatur was among the 
first distinguished men to be attracted by the 
simple seaside charm of the place, long before it 
was destroyed by wealth and crowds. Year by 

^ Stevens, History of Cape May County, pp. 219, 229; Kelley» 
American Yachts (1884), p. 165. 



PLANTERS AND TRADERS 167 

year he used to measure and record at one spot 
the encroachment of the sea upon the beach. 
Where today the sea washes and the steel pier 
extends, once lay cornfields. For a hundred years 
it was a favorite resting place for statesmen and 
politicians of national eminence. They traveled 
there by stage, sailing sloop, or their own wagons. 
People from Baltimore and the South more par- 
ticularly sought the place because it was easily 
accessible from the head of Chesapeake Bay by 
an old railroad, long since abandoned, to New 
Castle on the Delaware, whence sail- or steam- 
boats went to Cape May. This avoided the tedious 
stage ride over the sandy Jersey roads. Presidents, 
cabinet officers, senators, and congressmen sought 
the invigorating air of the Cape and the attrac- 
tions of the old village, its seafaring life, the 
sailing, fishing, and bathing on the best beach of 
the coast. Congress Hall, their favorite hotel, 
became famous, and during a large part of the 
nineteenth century presidential nominations and 
policies are said to have been planned within 
its walls. 



CHAPTER X 

SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS IN EAST JERSEY 

East Jersey was totally different in its topog- 
raphy from West Jersey. The northern half of 
the State is a region of mountains and lakes. As 
part of the original continent it had been under the 
ice sheet of the glacial age and was very unlike 
the level sands, swamps, and pine barrens of West 
Jersey which had arisen as a shoal and island from 
the sea. The only place in East Jersey where 
settlement was at all easy was along the open 
meadows which were reached by water near the 
mouth of the Hudson, round Newark Bay, and 
along the Hackensack River. 

The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson 
in 1609, claimed the whole region between the 
Hudson and the Delaware. They settled part 
of East Jersey opposite their headquarters at 
New York and called it Pavonia. But their cruel 
massacre of some Indians who sought refuge 

168 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 169 

among them at Pavonia destroyed the prospects 
of the settlement. The Indians revenged them- 
selves by massacring the Dutch again and again, 
every time they attempted to reestablish Pavonia. 
This kept the Dutch out of East Jersey until 1660, 
when they succeeded in establishing Bergen be- 
tween Newark Bay and the Hudson. 

The Dutch authority in America was over- 
thrown in 1664 by Charles II, who had already 
given all New Jersey to his brother the Duke of 
York. Colonel Richard Nicolls commanded the 
British expedition that seized the Dutch posses- 
sions ; and he had been given full power as deputy 
governor of all the Duke of York's vast territory. 

Meantime the New England Puritans seem to 
have kept their eyes on East Jersey as a desirable 
region, and the moment the Connecticut Puritans 
heard of Nicolls' appointment, they applied to him 
for a grant of a large tract of land on Newark 
Bay. In the next year, 1665, he gave them another 
tract from the mouth of the Raritan to Sandy 
Hook; and soon the villages of Shrewsbury and 
Middletown were started. 

Meantime, however, unknown to Nicolls, the 
Duke of York in England had given all of New 
Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. 



170 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

As has already been pointed out, they had divided 
the province between them, and East Jersey had 
fallen to Carteret, who sent out, with some im- 
migrants, his relative Philip Carteret as governor. 
Governor Carteret was of course very much sur- 
prised to find so much of the best land already 
occupied by the excellent and thrifty Yankees. 
As a consequence, litigation and sometimes civil 
war over this unlucky mistake lasted for a hundred 
years. Many of the Yankee settlers under the 
Nicolls grant refused to pay quitrents to Carteret 
or his successors and, in spite of a commission of 
inquiry from England in 1751 and a chancery 
suit, they held their own until the Revolution of 
1776 extinguished all British authority. 

There was therefore from the beginning a strong 
New England tinge in East Jersey which has lasted 
to this day. Governor Carteret established a vil- 
lage on Newark Bay which still bears the name 
Elizabeth, which he gave it in honor of the wife 
of the proprietor, and he made it the capital. 
There were also immigrants from Scotland and 
England. But Puritans from Long Island and 
New England continued to settle round Newark 
Bay. By virtue either of character or numbers, 
New Englanders were evidently the controlling 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 171 

element, for they established the New England 
system of town government, and imposed strict 
Connecticut laws, making twelve crimes punish- 
able with death. Soon there were flourishing little 
villages, Newark and Elizabeth, besides Middle- 
town and Shrewsbury. The next year Piscatawa 
and Woodbridge were added. Newark and the 
region round it, including the Oranges, was settled 
by very exclusive Puritans, or Congregationalists, 
as they are now called, some thirty families from 
four Connecticut towns — Milford, Guilford, Brad- 
ford, and New Haven. They decided that only 
church members should hold office and vote. 

Governor Carteret ruled the colony with an 
appointive council and a general assembly elected 
by the people, the typical colonial form of govern- 
ment. His administration lasted from 1665 to 
his death in 1682; and there is nothing very re- 
markable to record except the rebellion of the 
New Englanders, especially those who had received 
their land from Nicolls. Such independent Con- 
necticut people were, of course, quite out of place 
in a proprietary colony, and, when in 1670 the 
first collection of quitrents was attempted, they 
broke out in violent opposition, in which the 
settlers of Elizabeth were prominent. In 1672 



172 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

they elected a revolutionary assembly of their 
own and, in place of the deputy governor, ap- 
pointed as proprietor a natural son of Carteret. 
They began imprisoning former officers and con- 
fiscating estates in the most approved revolutionary 
form and for a time had the whole government in 
their control. It required the interference of the 
Duke of York, of the proprietors, and of the British 
Crown to allay the little tempest, and three years 
were given in which to pay the quitrents. 

After the death of Sir George Carteret in 1680, 
his province of East Jersey was sold to William 
Penn and eleven other Quakers for the sum of 
£3400. Colonies seem to have been compara- 
tively inexpensive luxuries in those days. A few 
years before, in 1675, Penn and some other Quak- 
ers had, as has already been related, gained con- 
trol of West Jersey for the still smaller sum of 
one thousand pounds and had established it as a 
Quaker refuge. It might be supposed that they 
now had the same purpose in view in East Jersey, 
but apparently their intention was to create a 
refuge for Presbyterians, the famous Scotch Cov- 
enanters, much persecuted at that time under 
Charles II, who was forcing them to conform to 
the Church of England. 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 173 

Penn and his fellow proprietors of East Jersey 
each chose a partner, most of them Scotchmen, 
two of whom, the Earl of Perth and Lord Drum- 
mond, were prominent men. To this mixed body 
of Quakers, other dissenters, and some Papists, 
twenty-four proprietors in all, the Duke of York 
reconfirmed by special patent their right to East 
Jersey. Under their urging a few Scotch Cov- 
enanters began to arrive and seem to have first 
established themselves at Perth Amboy, which they 
named from the Scottish Earl of Perth and an 
Indian word meaning "point." This settlement 
they expected to become a great commercial port 
rivahng New York. Curiously enough, Robert Bar- 
clay, the first governor appointed, was not only 
a Scotchman but also a Quaker, and a theolo- 
gian whose Apology for the True Christian Divinity 
(1678) is regarded to this day as the best statement 
of the original Quaker doctrine. He remained in 
England, however, and the deputies whom he sent 
out to rule the colony had a troublous time of it. 

That Quakers should establish a refuge for 
Presbyterians seems at first peculiar, but it was 
in accord with their general philanthropic plan 
to help the oppressed and suffering, to rescue 
prisoners and exiles, and especially to ameliorate 



174 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the horrible condition of people confined in the 
English dungeons and prisons. Many vivid pic- 
tures of how the Scotch Covenanters were hunted 
down like wild beasts may be found in English 
histories and novels. When their lives were spared 
they often met a fate worse than death in the 
loathsome dungeons into which thousands of Quak- 
ers of that time were also thrust. A large part of 
William Penn's life as a courtier was spent in rescu- 
ing prisoners, exiles, and condemned persons of 
all sorts, and not merely those of his own faith. 
So the undertaking to make of Jersey two colonies, 
one a refuge for Quakers and the other a refuge 
for Covenanters, was natural enough, and it was 
a very broad-minded plan for that age. 

In 1683, a few years after the Quaker control 
of East Jersey began, a new and fiercer persecution 
of the Covenanters was started in the old country, 
and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection 
in England broke out and was followed by a most 
bloody proscription and punishment. The greatest 
efforts were made to induce those still untouched 
to fly for refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to 
say, comparatively few of them came. It is an- 
other proof of the sturdiness and devotion which 
has filled so many pages of history and romance 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 175 
with their praise that as a class the Covenanters 
remained at home to estabhsh their faith with 
torture, martyrdom, and death. 

In 1685 the Duke of York ascended the throne 
of England as James II, and all that was naturally 
to be expected from such a bigoted despot was 
soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenant- 
ers grew worse. Crowded into prisons to die of 
thirst and suffocation, shot down on the high- 
ways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising 
tide, the whole Calvinistic population of Scotland 
seemed doomed to extermination. Again they 
were told of America as the only place where 
religious liberty was allowed, and in addition a 
book was circulated among them called The Model 
of the Government of the Province of East Jersey in 
America. These efforts were partially successful. 
More Covenanters came than before, but nothing 
like the numbers of Quakers that flocked to Penn- 
sylvania. The whole population of East Jersey 
— New Englanders, Dutch, Scotch Covenanters, 
and all — did not exceed five thousand and possibly 
was not over four thousand. 

Some French Huguenots, such as came to many 
of the English colonies after the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to the East 



176 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West 
Jersey, and some of these became Quakers. In 
both the Jerseys, as elsewhere, they became promi- 
nent and influential in all spheres of life. There 
was a decided Dutch influence, it is said, in the 
part nearest New York, emanating from the Ber- 
gen settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded 
in establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians 
had twice driven them from Pavonia. Many de- 
scendants of Dutch families are still found in 
that region. Many Dutch characteristics were 
to be found in that region throughout colonial 
times. Many of the houses had Dutch stoops or 
porches at the door, with seats where the family 
and visitors sat on summer evenings to smoke and 
gossip. Long Dutch spouts extended out from 
the eaves to discharge the rain water into the 
street. But the prevailing tone of East Jersey 
seems to have been set by the Scotch Presbyterians 
and the New England Congregationalists. The 
College of New Jersey, afterward known as Prince- 
ton, established in 1747, was the result of a move- 
ment among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and 
New York. 

All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Cov- 
enanters, Connecticut Puritans, Huguenots, and 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 177 

Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in a 
sense different but in reahty very much in accord 
and congenial in their ideas of religion and poli- 
tics. They were all sturdy, freedom-loving Prot- 
estants, and they set the tone that prevails in 
East Jersey to this day. Their strict discipline 
and their uncompromising thrift may now seem 
narrow and harsh; but it made them what they 
were; and it has left a legacy of order and pros- 
perity under which alien religions and races are 
eager to seek protection. In its foundation the 
Quakers may claim a share. 

The new King, James II, was inclined to reas- 
sume jurisdiction and extend the power of the 
Governor of New York over East Jersey in spite 
of his grant to Sir George Carteret. In fact, he 
desired to put New England, New York, and New 
Jersey under one strong government centered at 
New York, to abolish their charters, to extinguish 
popular government, and to make them all mere 
royal dependencies in pursuance of his general 
policy of establishing an absolute monarchy and 
a papal church in England. 

The curse of East Jersey's existence was to be 
always an appendage of New York, or to be threat- 
ened with that condition. The inhabitants now 



178 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

had to enter their vessels and pay duties at New 
York. Writs were issued by order of the King 
putting both the Jerseys and all New England un- 
der the New York Governor. Step by step the 
plans for amalgamation and despotism moved on 
successfully, when suddenly the English Revolution 
of 1688 put an end to the whole magnificent scheme, 
drove the King into exile, and placed William of 
Orange on the throne. 

The proprietaries of both Jerseys reassumed 
their former authority. But the New York As- 
sembly attempted to exercise control over East 
Jersey and to levy duties on its exports. The 
two provinces were soon on the eve of a little 
war. For twelve or fifteen years East Jersey was 
in disorder, with seditious meetings, mob rule, 
judges and sheriffs attacked while performing 
their duty, the proprietors claiming quitrents 
from the people, the people resisting, and the 
British Privy Council threatening a suit to take 
the province from the proprietors and make a 
Crown colony of it. The period is known in the 
history of this colony as "The Revolution." Un- 
der the threat of the Privy Council to take over 
the province, the proprietors of both East and 
West Jersey surrendered their rights of political 



SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS 179 

governraent, retaining their ownership of land and 
quitrents, and the two Jerseys were united under 
one government in 1702. Its subsequent history 
demands another chapter. 



CHAPTER XI 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 



The Quaker colonists grouped round Burlington 
and Salem, on the Delaware, and the Scotch 
Covenanters and New England colonists grouped 
around Perth Amboy and Newark, near the mouth 
of the Hudson, made up the two Jerseys. Neither 
colony had a numerous population, and the stretch 
of country lying between them was during most of 
the colonial period a wilderness. It is now crossed 
by the railway from Trenton to New York. It has 
always been a line of travel from the Delaware to 
the Hudson. At first there was only an Indian 
trail across it, but after 1695 there was a road, and 
after 1738 a stage route. 

In 1702, while still separated by this wilderness, 
the two Jerseys were united politically by the pro- 
prietors voluntarily surrendering all their political 
rights to the Crown. The political distinction 
between East Jersey and West Jersey was thus 

180 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 181 

abolished; their excellent free constitutions were 
rendered of doubtful authority; and from that 
time to the Revolution they constituted one colony 
under the control of a royal governor appointed 
by the Crown. 

The change was due to the uncertainty and an- 
noyance caused for their separate governments 
when their right to govern was in doubt owing to 
interference on the part of New York and the 
desire of the King to make them a Crown colony. 
The original grant of the Duke of York to the 
proprietors Berkeley and Carteret had given title 
to the soil but had been silent as to the right to 
govern. The first proprietors and their successors 
had always assumed that the right to govern 
necessarily accompanied this gift of the land. Such 
a privilege, however, the Crown was inclined to 
doubt. William Penn was careful to avoid this 
uncertainty when he received his charter for Penn- 
sylvania. Profiting by the sad example of the 
Jerseys, he made sure that he was given both the 
title to the soil and the right to govern. 

The proprietors, however, now surrendered only 
their right to govern the Jerseys and retained their 
ownership of the land; and the people always 
maintained that they, on their part, retained all 



182 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the political rights and privileges which had been 
granted them by the proprietors. And these rights 
were important, for the concessions or consti- 
tutions granted by the proprietdrs under the ad- 
vanced Quaker influence of the time were decidedly 
liberal. The assemblies, as the legislatures were 
called, had the right to meet and adjourn as they 
pleased, instead of having their meetings and 
adjournments dictated by the governor. This 
was an important right and one which the Crown 
and royal governors were always trying to restrict 
or destroy, because it made an assembly very in- 
dependent. This contest for colonial rights was 
exactly similar to the struggle of the English 
Parliament for liberty against the supposed right 
of the Stuart kings to call and adjourn Parlia- 
ment as they chose. If the governor could ad- 
journ the assembly when he pleased, he could 
force it to pass any laws he wanted or prevent 
its passing any laws at all. The two Jersey as- 
semblies under their Quaker constitutions also 
had the privilege of making their own rules of 
procedure, and they had jurisdiction over taxes, 
roads, towns, militia, and all details of govern- 
ment. These rights of a legislature are familiar 
enough now to all. Very few people realize. 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 183 

however, what a struggle and what sacrifices were 
required to attain them. 

The rest of New Jersey colonial history is made 
up chiefly of struggles over these two questions — 
the rights of the proprietors and their quitrents 
as against the people, and the rights of the new 
assembly as against the Crown. There were thus 
three parties, the governor and his adherents, the 
proprietors and their friends, and the assembly 
and the people. The proprietors had the best of 
the change, for they lost only their troublesome 
political power and retained their property. They 
never, however, received such financial returns 
from the property as the sons of William Penn 
enjoyed from Pennsylvania. But the union of 
the Jerseys seriously curtailed the rights enjoyed 
by the people under the old government, and 
all possibility of a Quaker government in West 
Jersey was ended. It was this experience in the 
Jerseys, no doubt, that caused William Penn to 
require so many safeguards in selling his political 
rights in Pennsylvania to the Crown that the sale 
was, fortunately for the colony, never completed. 

The assembly under the union met alternately 
at Perth Amboy and at Biu^lington. Lord Corn- 
bury, the first governor, was also Governor of 



184 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

New York, a humiliating arrangement that led to 
no end of trouble. The executive government, the 
press, and the judiciary were in the complete con- 
trol of the Crown and the Governor, who was in- 
structed to take care that " God Almighty be duly 
served according to the rites of the Church of Eng- 
land, and the traffic in merchantable negroes en- 
couraged . ' ' Cornbury contemptuously ignored the 
assembly's right to adjourn and kept adjourning 
it till one was elected which would pass the laws 
he wanted. Afterwards the assemblies were less 
compliant, and, under the lead of two able men, 
Lewis Morris of East Jersey and Samuel Jennings, 
a Quaker of West Jersey, they stood up for their 
rights and complained to the mother country. 
But Cornbury went on fighting them, granted 
monopolies, established arbitrary fees, prohibited 
the proprietors from selling their lands, prevented 
three members of the assembly duly elected from 
being sworn, and was absent in New York so much 
of the time that the laws went unexecuted and 
convicted murderers wandered about at large. In 
short, he went through pretty much the whole 
list of offenses of a corrupt and good-for-nothing 
royal governor of colonial times. The union of the 
two colonies consequently seem.ed to involve no 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 185 

improvement over former conditions. At last, the 
protests and appeals of proprietors and people 
prevailed, and Cornbury was recalled. 

Quieter times followed, and in 1738 New Jersey 
had the satisfaction of obtaining a governor all her 
own. The New York Governor had always neg- 
lected Jersey affairs, was difficult of access, made 
appointments and administered justice in the in- 
terests of New York, and forced Jersey vessels to 
pay registration fees to New York. Amid great 
rejoicing over the change, the Crown appointed 
the popular leader, Lewis Morris, as governor. 
But by a strange turn of fate, when once secure in 
power, he became a most obstinate upholder of 
royal prerogative, worried the assembly with ad- 
journments, and, after Cornbury, was the most 
obnoxious of all the royal governors. 

The governors now usually made Burlington 
their capital and it became, on that account, a 
place of much show and interest. The last colonial 
governor was William Franklin, an illegitimate 
son of Benjamin Franklin, and he would probably 
have made a success of the office if the Revolu- 
tion had not stopped him. He had plenty of abili- 
ty, affable manners, and was full of humor and 
anecdote like his father, whom he is said to have 



186 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

somewhat resembled. He had combined m youth a 
fondness for books with a fondness for adventure, 
was comptroller of the colonial post office and clerk 
of the Pennsylvania Assembly, served a couple 
of campaigns in the French and Indian Wars, went 
to England with his father in 1757, was admitted to 
the English Bar, attained some intimacy with the 
Earl of Bute and Lord Fairfax, and through the lat- 
ter obtained the governorship of New Jersey in 1762. 
The people were at first much displeased at his ap- 
pointment and never entirely got over his illegiti- 
mate birth and his turning from Whig to Tory as 
soon as his appointment was secured. But he ad- 
vanced the interests of the colony with the home 
government and favored beneficial legislation. He 
had an attractive wife, and they entertained, it is 
said, with viceregal elegance, and started a fine 
model farm or country place on the north shore of 
the Rancocas not far from the capital at Burlington. 
Franklin was drawing the province together and 
building it up as a community, but his extreme loyal- 
ist principles in the Revolution destroyed his chance 
for popularity and have obscured his reputation. 

Though the population of New Jersey was a 
mixed one, judged by the very distinct religious 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 187 

differences of colonial times, yet racially it was 
thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and a good stock to build 
upon. At the time of the Revolution in 1776 
the people numbered only about 120,000, indi- 
cating a slow growth; but when the first census 
of the United States was taken, in 1790, they 
numbered 184,139. 

The natural division of the State into North 
and South Jersey is marked by a line from Trenton 
to Jersey City. The people of these two divisions 
were quite as distinct in early times as striking dif- 
ferences in environment and religion could make 
them. Even in the inevitable merging of modern 
life the two regions are still distinct socially, eco- 
nomically, and intellectually. Along the dividing 
line the two types of the population, of course, 
merged and here was produced and is still to be 
I found the Jerseyman of the composite type. 

Trenton, the capital of the State, is very properly 
in the dividing belt. It was named after William 
Trent, a Philadelphia merchant who had been 
speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and who 
became chief justice of New Jersey. Long ages 
before white men came Trenton seems to have 
been a meeting place and residence of the Indians 
or preceding races of stone age men. Antiquarians 



188 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

have estimated that fifty thousand stone imple- 
ments have been found in it. As it was at the 
head of tidewater, at the so-called Falls of the 
Delaware, it was apparently a center of travel and | 
traffic from other regions. From the top of the 
bluff below the modern city of Trenton there was i 
easy access to forests of chestnut, oak, and pine, 
with their supplies of game, while the river and its 
tributary creeks were full of fish. It was a pleasant 
and convenient place where the people of pre- 
historic times apparently met and lingered during 
many centuries without necessarily having a large 
resident population at any one time. Trenton was 
so obviously convenient and central in colonial 
times that it was seriously proposed as a site for 
the national capital. 

Princeton University, though originating, as we 
have seen, among the Presbyterians of North 
Jersey, seems as a higher educational institution 
for the whole State to belong naturally in the 
dividing belt, the meeting place of the two divi- 
sions of the colony. The college began its exist- 
ence at Elizabeth, was then moved to Newark, 
both in the strongly Presbyterian region, and 
finally, in 1757, was established at Princeton, a 
more suitable place, it was thought, because far 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 189 

removed from the dissipation and temptation of 
towns, and because it was in the center of the 
colony on the post road between Philadelphia and 
New York. Though chartered as the College of 
New Jersey, it was often called Nassau Hall at 
Princeton or simply "Princeton." In 1896 it be- 
came known officially as Princeton University. 
It was a hard struggle to found the college with 
lotteries and petty subscriptions here and there. 
But Presbyterians in New York and other prov- 
inces gave aid. Substantial assistance was also 
obtained from the Presbyterians of England and 
Scotland. In the old pamphlets of the time which 
have been preserved the founders of the college 
argued that higher education was needed not only 
for ministers of religion, but for the bench, the bar, 
and the legislature. The two New England col- 
leges. Harvard and Yale, on the north, and the 
Virginia College of William and Mary on the south, 
were too far away. There must be a college close 
at hand. 

At first most of the graduates entered the Pres- 
byterian ministry. But soon in the short time 
before the Revolution there were produced states- 
men such as Richard Stockton of New Jersey, who 
signed the Declaration of Independence; physicians 



190 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

such as Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia; sol- 
diers such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee of Vir- 
ginia; as well as founders of other colleges, gover- 
nors of States, lawyers, attorney-generals, judges, 
congressmen, and indeed a very powerful assem- 
blage of intellectual lights. Nor should the names 
of James Madison, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan 
Edwards be omitted. 

East Jersey with her New England influence at- 
tempted something like free public schools. In 
West Jersey the Quakers had schools. In both 
Jerseys, after 1700 some private neighborhood 
schools were started, independent of religious 
denominations. The West Jersey Quakers, self- 
cultured and with a very effective system of men- 
tal discipline and education in their families as 
well as in their schools, were not particularly in- 
terested in higher education. But in East Jersey 
as another evidence of intellectual awakening in 
colonial times. Queen's College, afterward known 
as Rutgers College, was established by the Dutch 
Reformed Church in 1766, and was naturally 
placed, near the old source of Dutch influence, 
at New Brunswick in the northerly end of the 
dividing belt. 

New Jersey was fortunate in having no Indian 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 191 

wars in colonial times, no frontier, no point of 
hostile contact with the French of Canada or with 
the powerful western tribes of red men. Like 
Rhode Island in this respect, she was completely 
shut in by the other colonies. Once or twice only did 
bands of savages cross the Delaware and commit 
depredations on Jersey soil. This colony, however, 
did her part in sending troops and assistance to the 
others in the long French and Indian wars; but she 
had none of the pressing danger and experience of 
other colonies. Her people were never drawn to- 
gether by a common danger until the Revolution. 
In Jersey colonial homes there was not a single 
modern convenience of light, heat, or cooking, and 
none of the modern amusements. But there was 
plenty of good living and simple diversion — husk- 
ing bees and shooting in the autumn, skating and 
sleighing in the winter. Meetings and discussions 
in coffeehouses and inns supplied in those days the 
place of our modern books, newspapers, and maga- 
zines. Jersey inns were famous meeting places. 
Everybody passed through their doors — judges, 
lawyers, legislators, politicians, post riders, stage 
drivers, each bringing his contribution of informa- 
tion and humor, and the slaves and rabble stood 
round to pick up news and see the fun. 



192 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

The court days in each county were holidays 
celebrated with games of quoits, running, jumping, 
feasting, and discussions political and social. At 
the capital there was even style and extravagance. 
Governor Belcher, for example, who lived at Bur- | 
lington, professed to believe that the Quaker in- 
fluences of that town were not strict enough in 
keeping the Sabbath, so he drove every Sunday 
in his coach and four to Philadelphia to worship 
in the Presbyterian Church there and saw no 
inconsistency in his own behavior. 

Almanacs furnished much of the reading for the 
masses. The few newspapers offered little except 
the barest chronicle of events. The books of the 
upper classes were good though few, and consisted 
chiefly of the classics of English literature and 
books of information and travel. The diaries and 
letters of colonial native Jerseymen, the pamphlets 
of the time, and John Woolman's Journal, all 
show a good average of education and an excellent 
use of the English language. Samuel Smith's 
History of the Colony of Nova-Ccesaria, or New 
Jersey, written and printed at Burlington and 
published there in the year 1765, is written in a 
good and even attractive style, with as intelligent 
a grasp of political events as any modern mind 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 193 

could show; the type, paper, and press work, too, 
are excellent. Smith was born and educated in 
this same New Jersey town. He became a member 
of council and assembly, at one time was treasurer 
of the province, and his manuscript historical 
collections were largely used by Robert Proud in 
his History of Pennsylvania. 

The early houses of New Jersey were of heavy 
timbers covered with unpainted clapboards, usu- 
ally one story and a half high, with immense 
fireplaces, which, with candles, supplied the light. 
The floors were scrubbed hard and sprinkled 
with the plentiful white sand. Carpets, except 
the famous old rag carpets, were very rare. The 
old wooden houses have now almost entirely dis- 
appeared; but many of the brick houses which 
succeeded them are still preserved. They are 
of simple well-proportioned architecture, of a dis- 
tinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, and exuber- 
ant than those across the river in Pennsylvania, 
although both evidently derived from the Christo- 
pher Wren school. The old Jersey homes seem to 
reflect with great exactness the simple feeling of 
the people and to be one expression of the spirit 
of Jersey democracy. 

There were no important seats of commerce in 



194 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

this province. Exports of wheat, provisions, and 
lumber went to Philadelphia or New York, which 
were near and convenient. The Jersey shores 
near the mouth of the Hudson and along the 
Delaware, as at Camden, presented opportunities 
for ports, but the proximity to the two dominat- 
ing ports prevented the development of additional 
harbors in this part of the coast. It was not until 
after the Revolution that Camden, opposite Phila- 
delphia, and Jersey City, opposite New York, grew 
into anything like their present importance. 

There were, however, a number of small ports 
and shipbuilding villages in the Jerseys. It is a 
noticeable fact that in colonial times and even 
later there were very few Jersey towns beyond the 
head of tidewater. The people, even the farmers, 
were essentially maritime. The province showed 
its natural maritime characteristics, produced 
many sailors, and built innumerable small vessels 
for the coastmg and West India trade — sloops, 
schooners, yachts, and sailboats, down to the 
tiniest gunning boat and sneak box. Perth Am- 
boy was the principal port and shipbuilding cen- 
ter for East Jersey as Salem was for West Jersey. 
But Burlington, Bordentown, Cape May, and 
Trenton, and innumerable little villages up creeks^ 



THE UNITED JERSEYS 195 

and channels or mere ditches could not be kept 
from the prevailing industry. They built craft 
up to the limit of size that could be floated away 
in the water before their very doors. Plentifully 
supplied with excellent oak and pine and with 
the admirable white cedar of their own forests, 
very skillful shipwrights grew up in every little 
hamlet. 

A large part of the capital used in Jersey ship- 
building is said to have come from Philadelphia 
and New York. At first this capital sought its 
profit in whaling along the coast and afterwards 
in the trade with the West Indies, which for a time 
absorbed so much of the shipping of all the colonies 
in America. The inlets and beaches along the Jer- 
sey coast now given over to summer resorts were 
first used for whaling camps or bases. Cape May 
and Tuckerton were started and maintained by 
whaling; and as late as 1830, it is said, there were 
still signs of the industry on Long Beach. 

Except for the whaling, the beaches were un- 
inhabited — wild stretches of sand, swarming with 
birds and wild fowl, without a lighthouse or life- 
saving station. In the Revolution, when the 
British fleet blockaded the Delaware and New 
York, Little Egg, the safest of the inlets, was used 



196 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

for evading the blockade. Vessels entered there 
and sailed up the Mullica River to the head of 
navigation, whence the goods were distributed by 
wagons. To conceal their vessels when anchored 
just inside an inlet, the privateersmen would stand 
slim pine trees beside the masts and thus very 
effectively concealed the rigging from British 
cruisers prowling along the shore. 

Along with the whaling industry the risks and 
seclusion of the inlets and channels developed a 
romantic class of gentlemen, as handy with mus- 
ket and cutlass as with helm and sheet, fond of 
easy, exciting profits, and reaping where they had 
not sown. They would start legally enough, for 
they began as privateersmen under legal letters of 
marque in the wars. But the step was a short one 
to a traffic still more profitable; and for a hundred 
years Jersey customs officers are said to have issued 
documents which were ostensibly letters of marque 
but which really abetted a piratical cruise. Piracy 
was, however, in those days a semilegitimate 
offense, winked at by the authorities all through 
the colonial period; and respectable people and 
governors and officials of New York and North 
Carolina, it is said, secretly furnished funds for 
such expeditions and were interested in the profits. 



CHAPTER XII 

LITTLE DELAWARE 

Delaware was the first colony to be established 
on the river that bears this name. It went through 
half a century of experiences under the Dutch and 
Swedes from 1609 to 1664, and then eighteen 
years under the English rule of the Duke of York, 
from whom it passed into the hands of William 
Penn, the Quaker. The Dutch got into it by an 
accident and were regarded by the English as in- 
terlopers. And the Swedes who followed had no 
better title. 

The whole North Atlantic seaboard was claimed 
by England by virtue of the discoveries of the 
Cabots, father and son; but nearly a hundred 
years elapsed before England took advantage of 
this claim by starting the Virginia colony near the 
mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. And nearly 
a quarter of a century more elapsed before Eng- 
lishmen settled on the shores of Massachusetts 

197 



198 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Bay. Those were the two points most accessible 
to ships and most favorable for settlement. The 
middle ground of the Delaware and Hudson re- 
gions was not so easily entered and remained un- 
occupied. The mouth of the Delaware was full 
of shoals and was always difficult to navigate. 
The natural harbor at the mouth of the Hudson 
was excellent, but the entrance to it was not at 
first apparent. 

Into these two regions, however, the Dutch 
chanced just after the English had effected the 
settlement of Jamestown in Virginia. The Dutch 
had employed an Englishman named Henry Hud- 
son and sent him in 1609 in a small ship called the 
Half Moon to find a passage to China and India 
by way of the Arctic Ocean. Turned back by the 
ice in the Arctic, he sailed down the coast of North 
America and began exploring the middle ground 
from the Virginia settlement, which he seems to 
have known about; and, working cautiously north- 
ward along the coast and feeling his way with the 
lead line, he soon entered Delaware Bay. But 
finding it very difficult of navigation he departed 
and, proceeding in the same careful way up along 
the coast of New Jersey, he finally entered the 
harbor of New York and sailed up the Hudson far 



LITTLE DELAWARE 199 

enough to satisfy himself that it was not the desired 
course to China. 

This exploration gave the Dutch their claim to 
the Delaware and Hudson regions. But though 
it was worthless as against the English right by 
discovery of the Cabots, the Dutch went ahead 
with their settlement, established their headquar- 
ters and seat of government on Manhattan Island, 
where New York stands today, and exercised as 
much jurisdiction and control as they could on 
the Delaware. 

Their explorations of the Delaware, feeling their 
way up it with small light draft vessels among its 
shoals and swift tides, their travels on land — 
shooting wild turkeys on the site of the present 
busy town of Chester — and their adventures 
with the Indians are full of interest. The immense 
quantities of wild fowl and animal and bird life 
along the shores astonished them; but what most 
aroused their cupidity was the enormous supply 
of furs, especially beaver and otter, that could 
be obtained from the Indians. Furs became their 
great, in fact, their only interest in the Delaware. 
They established forts, one near Cape Henlopen 
at the mouth of the river, calling it Fort Oplandt, 
and another far up the river on the Jersey side at 



-200 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

the mouth of Timber Creek, nearly opposite the 
present site of Philadelphia, and this they called 
Fort Nassau. Fort Oplandt was destroyed by the 
Indians and its people were massacred. Fort 
Nassau was probably occupied only at intervals. 
These two posts were built mainly to assist the fur 
trade, and any attempts at real settlement w^ere 
slight and unsuccessful. 

"^ Meantime about the year 1624 the Swedes heard 
of the wonderful opportunities on the Delaware. 
The Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, a man 
of broad ambitions and energetic mind, heard 
about the Delaware from Willem Usselinx, a mer- 
chant of Antwerp who had been actively interested 
in the formation of the Dutch West India Com- 
pany to trade in the Dutch possessions in America. 
Having quarreled with the directors, Usselinx had 
withdrawn from the Netherlands and now offered 
his services to Sweden. The Swedish court, nobles, 
and people, all became enthusiastic about the pro- 
ject which he elaborated for a great commercial 
company to trade and colonize in Asia, Africa, and 
America.' But the plan was dropped because, 
soon after 1630, Gustavus Adolphus led his country 

^ See Willem Usselinx, by J. F. Jameson in the Papers of the Ameri- 
can Historical Association, vol. ii. 



LITTLE DELAWARE 201 

to intervene on the side of the Protestants in the 
Thirty Years' War in Germany, where he was 
killed three years later at the battle of Lutzen. 
But the desire aroused by Usselinx for a Swedish 
colonial empire was revived in the reign of his in- 
fant daughter, Christina, by the celebrated Swedish 
Chancellor, Oxenstierna. 

An expedition, which actually reached the Dela- 
ware in 1638, was sent out under another Dutch 
renegade, Peter Minuit, who had been Governor 
of New Netherland and after being dismissed 
from office was now leading this Swedish enter- 
prise to occupy part of the territory he had 
formerly governed for the Dutch. His two ships 
sailed up the Delaware and with good judgment 
landed at the present site of Wilmington. At that 
point a creek carrying a depth of over fourteen 
feet for ten miles from its mouth flowed into the 
Delaware. The Dutch had called this creek Min- 
quas, after the tribe of Indians ; the Swedes named 
it the Christina after their infant Queen ; and in mod- 
ern times it has been corrupted into Christiana. 

They sailed about two and a half miles through 
its delta marshes to some rocks which formed a 
natural wharf and which still stand today at the 
foot of Sixth Street in Wilmington. This was the 



202 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Plymouth Rock of Delaware. Level land, marshes, 
and meadows lay along the Christina, the remains 
of the delta which the stream had formed in the 
past. On the edge of the delta or moorland, rocky 
hills rose, forming the edge of the Piedmont, and 
out of them from the north flowed a fine large 
stream, the Brandywine, which fell into the Chris- 
tina just before it entered the Delaware. Here in 
the delta their engineer laid out a town, called 
Christinaham, and a fort behind the rocks on 
which they had landed. A cove in the Christina 
made a snug anchorage for their ships, out of the 
way of the tide. They then bought from the In- 
dians all the land from Cape Henlopen to the 
Falls of the Delaware at Trenton, calling it New 
Sweden and the Delaware New Swedeland Stream. 
The people of Delaware have always regarded 
New Sweden as the beginning of their State, and 
Peter Minuit, the leader of this Swedish expedi- 
tion, always stands first on the published lists of 
their governors. 

On their arrival in the river in the spring of 1638, 
the Swedes found no evidences of permanent 
Dutch colonization . Neither Fort Oplandt nor Fort 
Nassau was then occupied. They always main- 
tained that the Dutch had abandoned the river. 



LITTLE DELAWARE 203 

and that it was therefore open to the Swedes for 
occupation, especially after they had purchased 
the Indian title. It was certainly true that the 
Dutch efforts to plant colonies in that region had 
failed; and since the last attempt by De Vries, 
six years had elapsed. On the other hand, the 
Dutch contended that they had in that time put 
Fort Nassau in repair, although they had not oc- 
cupied it, and that they kept a few persons living 
along the Jersey shore of the river, possibly the 
remains of the Nassau colony, to watch all who 
visited it. These people had immediately notified 
the Dutch governor Kieft at New Amsterdam of 
the arrival of the Swedes, and he promptly issued a 
protest against the intrusion. But his protest was 
neither very strenuous nor was it followed up by 
hostile action, for Sweden and Holland were on 
friendly terms. Sweden, the great champion of 
Protestant Europe, had intervened in the Thir- 
ty Years' War to save the Protestants of Ger- 
many. The Dutch had just finished a similar des- 
perate war of eighty years for freedom from the 
papal despotism of Spain. Dutch and Swedes 
had, therefore, every reason to be in sympathy 
with each other. 
The Swedes, a plain, strong, industrious people. 



204 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

as William Penn aptly called them, were soon, 
however, seriously interfering with the Dutch fur 
trade and in the first year, it is said, collected 
thirty thousand skins. If this is true, it is an 
indication of the immense supply of fur-bearing 
animals, especially beaver, available at that time. 
For the next twenty -five years Dutch and Swedes 
quarreled and sometimes fought over their re- 
spective claims. But it is significant of the difficulty 
of retaining a hold on the Delaware region that the 
Swedish colonists on the Christina after a year or two 
regarded themselves as a failure and were on the 
point of abandoning their enterprise, when a vessel 
fortunately for them arrived with cattle, agricul- 
tural tools, and immigrants. It is significant also 
that the immigrants, though in a Swedish vessel 
and under the Swedish government, were Dutch- 
men. They formed a sort of separate Dutch colony 
under Swedish rule and settled near St. George's 
and Appoquinimink. Immigrants apparently were 
difficult to obtain among the Swedes, who were 
not colonizers like the English. 

At this very time, in fact, Englishmen, Puritans 
from Connecticut, were slipping into the Delaware 
region under the leadership of Nathaniel Turner 
and George Lamberton, and were buying the land 



LITTLE DELAWARE 205 

from the Indians. About sixty settled near Salem, 
New Jersey, and some on the Schuylkill in Penn- 
sylvania, close to Fort Nassau — an outrageous 
piece of audacity, said the Dutch, and an insult 
to their "High Mightinesses and the noble Direc- 
tors of the West India Company. " So the Schuyl- 
kill English were accordingly driven out, and their 
houses were burned. The Swedes afterwards ex- 
pelled the English from Salem and from the Cohan- 
sey, lower down the Bay. Later the English were 
allowed to return, but they seem to have done little 
except trade for furs and beat off hostile Indians. 
The seat of the Swedish government was moved 
in 1643 from the Christina to Tinicum, one of the 
islands of the Schuylkill delta, with an excellent 
harbor in front of it which is now the home of the 
yacht clubs of Philadelphia. Here they built a 
fort of logs, called Fort Gothenborg, a chapel with 
a graveyard, and a mansion house for the governor, 
and this remained the seat of Swedish authority 
as long as they had any on the river. From here 
Governor Printz, a portly irascible old soldier, 
said to have weighed "upwards of 400 pounds and 
taken three drinks at every meal," ruled the river. 
He built forts on the Schuylkill and worried 
the Dutch out of the fur trade. He also built a 



206 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

fort called Nya Elfsborg, afterward Elsinboro, on 
the Jersey side below Salem. By means of this 
fort he was able to command the entrance to the 
river and compelled every Dutch ship to strike 
her colors and acknowledge the sovereignty of 
Sweden. Some he prevented from going up the 
river at all; others he allowed to pass on payment 
of toll or tribute. He gave orders to destroy every 
trading house or fort which the Dutch had built 
on the Schuylkill, and to tear down the coat of 
arms and insignia which the Dutch had placed on 
a post on the site of Philadelphia. The Swedes 
now also bought from the Indians and claimed 
the land on the Jersey side from Cape May up to 
Raccoon Creek, opposite the modern Chester. 

The best place to trade with the Indians for furs 
was the Schuylkill River, which flowed into the 
Delaware at a point where Philadelphia was after- 
wards built. There were at that time Indian vil- 
lages where West Philadelphia now stands. The 
headwaters of streams flowing into the Schuyl- 
kill were only a short distance from the headwaters 
of streams flowing into the Susquehanna, so that 
the valley of the Schuylkill formed the natural 
highway into the interior of Pennsylvania. The 
route to the Ohio River followed the Schuylkill for 



LITTLE DELAWARE 207 

some thirty or forty miles, turned up one of its 
tributaries to its source, then crossed the watershed 
to the head of a stream flowing into the Susque- 
hanna, thence to the Juniata, at the head of which 
the trail led over a short divide to the head of the 
Conemaugh, which flowed into the Allegheny, and 
the Allegheny into the Ohio. Some of the Swedes 
and Dutch appear to have followed this route with 
the Indians as early as 1646. 

The Ohio and Allegheny region was inhabited 
by the Black Minquas, so called from their custom 
of wearing a black badge on their breast. The 
Ohio, indeed, was first called the Black Minquas 
River. As the country nearer the Delaware was 
gradually denuded of beaver, these Black Minquas 
became the great source of supply and carried the 
furs, over the route described, to the Schuyl- 
kill. The White Minquas lived further east, round 
Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and, though spo- 
ken of as belonging by language to the great 
Iroquois or Six Nation stock, were themselves con- 
quered and pretty much exterminated by the 
Six Nations. The Black Minquas, believed to be 
the same as the Eries of the Jesuit Relations, were 
also practically exterminated by the Six Nations. ^ 

^ Myers, Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, pp. 103-104. 



208 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

The furs brought down the Schuylkill were de- 
posited at certain rocks two or three miles above 
its mouth at Bartram's Gardens, now one of the 
city parks of Philadelphia. On these rocks, then 
an island in the Schuylkill, the Swedes built a fort 
which completely commanded the river and cut the 
Dutch off from the fur trade. They built another 
fort on the other side of Bartram's Gardens along 
the meadow near what is now Gibson's Point; and 
Governor Printz had a great mill a couple of miles 
away on Cobb's Creek, where the old Blue Bell tav- 
ern has long stood. These two forts protected the 
mill and the Indian villages in West Philadelphia. 

One would like to revisit the Delaware of those 
days and see all its wild life and game, its islands 
and shoals, its virgin forests as they had grown 
up since the glacial age, untouched by the civiliza- 
tion of the white man. There were then more 
islands in the river, the water was clearer, and 
there were pretty pebble and sandy beaches now 
overlaid by mud brought down from vast regions 
of the valley no longer protected by forests from 
the wash of the rains. On a wooded island below 
Salem, long since cut away by the tides, the pirate 
Blackhead and his crew are said to have passed a 
winter. The waters of the river spread out wide at 



LITTLE DELAWARE 209 

every high tide over marshes and meadows, turning 
them twice a day for a few hours into lakes, grown 
up in summer with red and yellow flowers and the 
graceful wild oats, or reeds, tasseled like Indian corn. 

At Christinaham, in the delta of the Christina 
and the Brandyv/ine, the tide flowed far inland to 
the rocks on which Minuit's Swedish expedition 
landed, leaving one dry spot called Cherry Island, 
a name still borne by a shoal in the river. Fort 
Christina, on the edge of the overflowed meadow, 
with the rocky promontory of hills behind it, its 
church and houses, and a wide prospect across the 
delta and river, was a fair spot in the old days. 
The Indians came down the Christina in their 
canoes or overland, bringing their packs of beaver, 
otter, and deer skins, their tobacco, corn, and veni- 
son to exchange for the cloth, blankets, tools, and 
gaudy trinkets that pleased them. It must often 
have been a scene of strange life and coloring, and 
it is diflScult today to imagine it all occurring close 
to the spot where the Pennsylvania railroad station 
now stands in Wilmington. 

When doughty Peter Stuy vesant became Gover- 
nor of New Netherland, he determined to assert 
Dutch authority once more on the South River, as 
the Delaware was called in distinction from the 



210 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Hudson. As the Swedes now controlled it by their 
three forts, not a Dutch ship could reach Fort 
Nassau without being held up at Fort Elfsborg or 
at Fort Christina or at the fort at Tinicum. It 
was a humiliating situation for the haughty spirit 
of the Dutch governor. To open the river to Dutch 
commerce again, Stuyvesant marched overland in 
1651 through the wilderness, with one hundred and 
twenty men and, abandoning Fort Nassau, built 
a new fort on a fine promontory which then extend- 
ed far out into the river below Christina. Today 
the place is known as New Castle; the Dutch com- 
monly referred to it as Sandhoeck or Sand Point; 
the English called it Grape Vine Point. Stuyvesant 
named it Fort Casimir. 

The tables were now turned: the Dutch could 
retaliate upon Swedish shipping. But the Swedes 
were not so easily to be dispossessed. Three years 
later a new Swedish governor named Rising arrived 
in the river with a number of immigrants and sol- 
diers. He sailed straight up to Fort Casimir, took 
it by surprise, and ejected the Dutch garrison of 
about a dozen men. As the successful coup oc- 
curred on Trinity Sunday, the Swedes renamed 
the place Fort Trinity. 

The whole population — Dutch and Swede, but 



LITTLE DELAWARE 211 

in 1654 mostly Swede — numbered only 368 per- 
sons. Before the arrival of Rising there had been 
only seventy. It seems a very small number about 
which to be writing history; but small as it was 
their "High Mightinesses," as the government of 
the United Netherlands was called, were deter- 
mined to avenge on even so small a number the 
insult of the capture of Fort Casimir. 

Drums, it is said, were beaten every day in Hol- 
land to call for recruits to go to America. Gun- 
ners, carpenters, and powder were collected. A 
ship of war was sent from Holland, accompanied 
by two other vessels whose names alone. Great 
Christopher and King Solomon, should have been 
sufficient to scare all the Swedes. At New Am- 
sterdam, Stuyvesant labored night and day to fit 
out the expedition. A French privateer which 
happened to be in the harbor was hired. Several 
other vessels, in all seven ships, and six or seven 
hundred men, with a chaplain called Megapolen- 
sis, composed this mighty armament gathered 
together to drive out the handful of poor hard- 
working Swedes. A day of fasting and prayer was 
held and the Almighty was implored to bless this 
mighty expedition which, He was assured, was 
undertaken for "the glory of His name." 



212 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

It was the absurdity of such contrasts as this 
running all through the annals of the Dutch in 
America that inspired Washington Irving to write 
his infinitely humorous History of New York from 
the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch 
Dynasty, by "Diedrich Knickerbocker." It is dif- 
ficult for an Anglo-Saxon to take the Dutch in 
America seriously. What can you do with a people 
whose imagination allowed them to give such names 
to their ships as Weigh Scales, Spotted Cow, and The 
Pear Tree f So Irving described the taking of Fort 
Casimir in mock heroic manner. He describes the 
marshaling of the Dutch hosts of New York by fam- 
ilies, the Van Grolls of Anthony's Nose, the Brinker- 
hoffs, the Van Kortlandts, the Van Bunschotens of 
Nyack and Kakiat, the fighting men of Wallabout, 
the Van Pelts, the Suy Dams, the Van Dams, and 
all the warriors of Hellgate "clad in their thunder- 
and-lightning gaberdines," and lastly the stand- 
ard bearers and bodyguards of Peter Stuyvesant, 
bearing the great beaver of the Manhattan. 

And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate 
struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desper- 
ation, the confusion and self-abandonment of war. 
Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and 
blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest 



LITTLE DELAWARE ns 

of missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the 
broadswords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went 
the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black 
eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene ! 
Thick, thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy- 
piggledy, hurly-burly, heads-over-heels, rough-and- 
tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; 
splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the 
works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the mine! 
roared stout Risingh — Tantarar-ra-ra! twanged the 
trumpet of Antony Van Corlear; — until all voice and 
sound became unintelligible, — grunts of pain, yells of 
fury, and shouts of triumph mingling in one hideous 
clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic 
stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; 
rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even 
Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a 
hill in breathless terror! 

As a matter of fact, the fort surrendered without 
a fight on September 1, 1655. It was thereupon 
christened New Amstel, afterwards New Castle, 
and was for a long time the most important town 
on the Delaware. This achievement put the Dutch 
in complete authority over the Swedes on both 
sides of the river. The Swedes, however, were con- 
tent, abandoned politics, secluded themselves on 
their farms, and left politics to the Dutch. Trade, 
too, they left to the Dutch, who, in their effort to 
monopolize it, almost killed it. 



214 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

This conquest by their High Mightinesses also 
ended the attempts of the New Englanders, par- 
ticularly the people of New Haven, to get a foot- 
hold in the neighborhood of Salem, New Jersey, 
for which they had been struggling for years. 
They had dreams of a great lake far to northward 
full of beaver to which the Delaware would lead 
them. Their efforts to establish themselves sur- 
vived in one or two names of places near Salem, 
as, for example. New England Creek, and New 
England Channel, which down almost into our 
own time was found on charts marking one of the 
minor channels of the bay along the Jersey shore. 
They continued coming to the river in ships to 
trade in spite of restrictions by the Dutch; and 
some of them in later years, as has been pointed 
out, secured a foothold on the Cohansey and in 
the Cape May region, where their descendants are 
still to be found. 



CHAPTER Xin 

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 

It is a curious fact that the ancestor of the numer- 
ous Beekman family in New York, after whom 
Beekman Street is named, was for a time one of 
the Dutch governors on the Delaware who after- 
wards became the sheriff of Esopus, New York. 
His successor on the Delaware had some thoughts 
of removing the capital down to Odessa on the 
Appoquinimink, when an event long dreaded 
happened. In 1664, war broke out between Eng- 
land and Holland, long rivals in trade and com- 
merce, and all the Dutch possessions in the New 
World fell an easy prey to English conquerors. 
A British fleet took possession of New Amster- 
dam, which surrendered without a struggle. But 
when two British men of war under Sir Robert 
Carr appeared before New Amstel on the Dela- 
ware, Governor D'Hinoyossa unwisely resisted; and 
his untenable fort was quickly subdued by a few 

215 



216 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

broadsides and a storming party. This opposition 
gave the conquering party, according to the cus- 
tom of the times, the right to plunder; and it must 
be confessed that the English soldiers made full use 
of their opportunity. They plundered the town 
and confiscated the land of prominent citizens for 
the benefit of the officers of the expedition. 

After the English conquest on the Delaware, not a 
few of the Dutch migrated to Maryland, where their 
descendants, it is said, are still to be found. Some 
in later years returned to the Delaware, where on the 
whole, notwithstanding the early confiscations, Eng- 
lish rule seemed to promise well . The very first docu- 
ments, the terms of surrender both on the Delaware 
and on the Hudson, breathed an air of Anglo-Saxon 
freedom. Everybody was at liberty to come and go 
at will. Hollanders could migrate to the Delaware 
or to New York as much as before. The Dutch sol- 
diers in the country, if they wished to remain, were 
to have fifty acres of land apiece. This generous set- 
tlement seemed in striking contrast to the pinching, 
narrow interference with trade and individual rights, 
the seizures and confiscations for private gain, all 
under pretense of punishment, bad enough on the 
Delaware but worse at New Amsterdam, which had 
characterized the rule of the Dutch. 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 217 

The Duke of York, to whom Delaware was 
given, introduced trial by jury, settled private 
titles, and left undisturbed the religion and local 
customs of the people. But the political rule of 
the Duke was absolute as became a Stuart. He 
arbitrarily taxed exports and imports. Executive, 
judicial, and legislative powers were all vested in 
his deputy governor at New York or in creatures 
appointed and controlled by him. It was the sort 
of government the Duke hoped to impose upon all 
Great Britain when he should come to the throne, 
and he was trying his 'prentice hand in the colonies. 
A political rebellion against this despotism was 
started on the Delaware by a man named Konigs- 
marke, or the Long Finn, aided by an Englishman, 
Henry Coleman. They were captured and tried 
for treason, their property was confiscated, and 
the Long Finn branded with the letter R, and 
sold as a slave in the Barbados. They might be 
called the first martyrs to foreshadow the Eng- 
lish Revolution of 1688 which ended forever the 
despotic reign of the Stuarts. 

The Swedes continued to form the main body of 
people on the Delaware under the regime of the Duke 
of York, and at the time when William Penn took 
possession of the country in 1682 their settlements 



218 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

extended from New Castle up through Christina, 
Marcus Hook, Upland (now Chester), Tinicum, 
Kingsessing in the modern West Philadelphia, 
Passyunk, Wicaco, both in modern Philadelphia, 
and as far up the river as Frankford and Penny- 
pack. They had their churches at Christina, Tini- 
cum, Kingsessing, and Wicaco. The last, when 
absorbed by Philadelphia, was a pretty little ham- 
let on the river shore, its farms belonging to a 
Swedish family called Swanson whose name is 
now borne by one of the city's streets. Across the 
river in New Jersey, opposite Chester, the Swedes 
had settlements on Raccoon Creek and round 
Swedesboro. These river settlements constituted 
an interesting and from all accounts a very attrac- 
tive Scandinavian community. Their strongest 
bond of union seems to have been their interest in 
their liUtheran churches on the river. They spread 
very little into the interior, made few roads, and 
lived almost exclusively on the river or on its 
navigable tributaries. One reason they gave for 
this preference was that it was easier to reach the 
different churches by boat. 

There were only about a thousand Swedes along 
the Delaware and possibly five hundred of Dutch 
and mixed blood, together with a few English, all 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 219 

living a life of abundance on a fine river amid 
pleasing scenery, with good supplies of fish and 
game, a fertile soil, and a wilderness of opportunity 
to the west of them. All were well pleased to be 
relieved from the stagnant despotism of the Duke 
of York and to take part in the free popular gov- 
ernment of William Penn in Pennsylvania. They 
became magistrates and oflScials, members of the 
council and of the legislature. They soon found 
that all their avenues of trade and life were quick- 
ened. They passed from mere farmers supplying 
their own needs to exporters of the products of 
their farms. 

Descendants of the Swedes and Dutch still 
form the basis of the population of Delaware.' 
There were some Finns at Marcus Hook, which 
was called Finland ; and it may be noted in pass- 
ing that there were not a few French among the 
Dutch, as among the Germans in Pennsylvania, 

* Swedish names anglicized are now found everywhere. Gostafs- 
son has become Justison and Justis. Bond has become Boon; 
Hoppman, Hoffman; Kalsberg, Colesberry; Wihler, Wheeler; Joc- 
com, Yocum; Dahlbo, Dalbow; Konigh, King; Kyn, Keen; and 
so on. Then there are also such names as Wallraven, Hendrickson, 
Stedham, Peterson, Matson, Talley, Anderson, and the omnipresent 
Rambo, which have suffered little, if any, change. Dutch names are 
also numerous, such as Lockermans, Vandever, Van Dyke, Van- 
gezel, Vandegrift, Alricks, Statts, Van Zandt, Hyatt, Cochran (origi- 
nally Kolchman), Vance, and Blackstone (originally Blackenstein). 



220 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Huguenots who had fled from rehgious persecution 
in France. The name Jaquette, well known in 
Delaware, marks one of these families, whose im- 
migrant ancestor was one of the Dutch governors. 
In the ten or dozen generations since the English 
conquest intermarriage has in many instances 
inextricably mixed up Swede, Dutch, and French, 
as well as the English stock, so that many persons 
with Dutch names are of Swedish or French de- 
scent and vice versa, and some with English names 
like Oldham are of Dutch descent. There has 
been apparently much more intermarriage among 
the different nationalities in the province and less 
standing aloof than among the alien divisions of 
Pennsylvania. 

After the English conquest some Irish Presby- 
terians or Scotch-Irish entered Delaware. Finally 
came the Quakers, comparatively few in colonial 
times but more numerous after the Revolution, 
especially in Wilmington and its neighborhood. 
True to their characteristics, they left descendants 
who have become the most prominent and use- 
ful citizens down into our own time. At pres- 
ent Wilmington has become almost as distinctive 
a Quaker town as Philadelphia. "Thee" and 
"thou" are frequently heard in the streets, and 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 221 

a surprisingly large proportion of the people of 
prominence and importance are Quakers or of Quak- 
er descent. Many of the neat and pleasant charac- 
teristics of the town are distinctly of Quaker origin ; 
and these characteristics are found wherever Quaker 
influence prevails. 

Wilmington was founded about 1731 by Thomas 
Willing, an Englishman, who had married into the 
Swedish family of Justison. He laid out a few 
streets on his wife's land on the hill behind the 
site of old Fort Christina, in close imitation of the 
plan of Philadelphia, and from that small begin- 
ning the present city grew, and was at first called 
Willingtown. ^ William Shipley, a Pennsylvania 
Quaker born in England, bought land in it in 1735, 
and having more capital than Willing, pushed the 
fortunes of the town more rapidly. He probably 
had not a little to do with bringing Quakers to 
Wilmington; indeed, their first meetings were held 
in a house belonging to him until they could build 
a meeting house of their own in 1738. 

Both Shipley and Willing had been impressed 
w^th the natural beauty of the situation, the wide 
view over the level moorland and green marsh 

^ Some years later in a borough charter granted by Penn, the name 
was changed to Wilmington in honor of the Earl of Wilmington. 



222 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

and across the broad river to the Jersey shore, as 
well as by the natural conveniences of the place 
for trade and commerce. Wilmington has ever 
since profited by its excellent situation, with the 
level moorland for industry, the river for traf- 
fic, and the first terraces or hills of the Piedmont 
for residence; and, for scenery, the Brandy wine 
tumbling through rocks and bowlders in a long 
series of rapids. 

The custom still surviving in Wilmington of 
punishing certain classes of criminals by whipping 
appears to have originated in the days of Willing 
and Shipley, about the year 1740, when a cage, 
stocks, and whipping-post were erected. They 
were placed in the most conspicuous part of the 
town, and there the culprit, in addition to his legal 
punishment, was also disciplined at the discretion 
of passers-by with rotten eggs and other equally 
potent encouragements to reform. These gratui- 
tous inflictions, not mentioned in the statute, as 
well as the public exhibition of the prisoner were 
abolished in later times and in this modified form 
the method of correction was extended to the two 
other counties. Sometimes a cat-o'-nine-tails was 
used, sometimes a rawhide whip, and sometimes 
a switch cut from a tree. Nowadays, however, 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 223 

all the whipping for the State is done in Wilming- 
ton, where all prisoners sentenced to whipping in 
the State are sent. This punishment is found to 
be so efficacious that its infliction a second time 
on the same person is exceedingly rare. 

The most striking relic of the old Swedish days 
in Wilmington is the brick and stone church of 
good proportions and no small beauty, and today 
one of the very ancient relics of America. It was 
built by the Swedes in 1698 to replace their old 
wooden church, which was on the lower land, and 
the Swedish language was used in the services 
down to the year 1800, when the building was 
turned over to the Church of England. Old Peter 
Minuit, the first Swedish governor, may possibly 
have been buried there. The Swedes built another 
pretty chapel — Gloria Dei, as it was called — at 
the village of Wicaco, on the shore of the Delaware 
where Philadelphia afterwards was established. 
The original building was taken down in 1700, and 
the present one was erected on its site partly with 
materials from the church at Tinicum. It re- 
mained Swedish Lutheran until 1831, when, like 
all the Swedish chapels, it became the property of 
the Church of England, between which and the 
Swedish Lutheran body there was a close affinity. 



224 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

if not in doctrine, at least in episcopal organiza- 
tion.^ The old brick church dating from 1740, 
on the main street of Wilmington, is an interesting 
relic of the colonial Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in 
Delaware, and is now carefully preserved as the 
home of the Historical Society. 

After Delaware had been eighteen years under 
the Duke of York, William Penn felt a need of the 
west side of the river all the way down to the sea 
to strengthen his ownership of Pennsylvania. He 
also wanted to offset the ambitions of Lord Balti- 
more to extend Maryland northward. Penn ac- 
cordingly persuaded his friend James, the Duke 
of York, to give him a grant of Delaware, which 
Penn thereupon annexed to Pennsylvania under 
the name of the Territories or Three Lower Coun- 
ties. The three counties. New Castle, Kent, and 
Sussex, "^ are still the counties of Delaware, each 
one extending across the State and filling its whole 
length from the hills of the Brandywine on the 
Pennsylvania border to the sands of Sussex at 
Cape Henlopen. The term "Territory" has ever 
since been used in America to describe an outlying 



^ Clay's Annals of the Swedes, pp. 143, 153-4. 
' The original names were New Castle, Jones's, and Hoerekili, as it 
was called by the Dutch, or Deal. 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 225 

province not yet given the privileges of a State. 
Instead of townships, the three Delaware counties 
were divided into "hundreds, " an old Anglo-Saxon 
county method of division going back beyond 
the times of Alfred the Great. Delaware is the 
only State in the Union that retains this name 
for county divisions. The Three Lower Counties 
were allowed to send representatives to the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly; and the Quakers of Delaware 
have always been part of the Yearly Meeting in 
Philadelphia. 

In 1703, after having been a part of Pennsyl- 
vania for twenty years, the Three Lower Counties 
were given home rule and a legislature of their own; 

: but they remained under the Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania until the Revolution of 1776. They then be- 
came an entirely separate community and one of the 
thirteen original States . Delaware was the first State 
to adopt the National Constitution, and Rhode Is- 
land, its fellow small State, the last. Having been 
first to adopt the Constitution, the people of Dela- 
ware claim that on all national occasions or ceremo- 
nies they are entitled to the privilege of precedence. 
They have every reason to be proud of the represent- 

, ative men they sent to the Continental Congress, 
and to the Senate in later times. 

IS 



226 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

Agriculture has, of course, aways been the 
principal occupation on the level fertile land of 
Delaware; and it is agriculture of a high class, for 
the soil, especially in certain localities, is particu- | 
larly adapted to wheat, corn, and timothy grass, 
as well as small fruits. That section of land cross- 
ing the State in the region of Delaware City and 
Middleton is one of the show regions in America, 
for crops of wheat and corn. Farther south, grain 
growing is combined with small fruits and vege- 
tables with a success seldom attained elsewhere. 
Agriculturally there is no division of land of similar 
size quite equal to Delaware in fertility. Its sand 
and gravel base with vegetable mold above is 
somewhat like the southern Jersey formation, but 
it is more productive from having a larger deposit 
of decayed vegetation. 

The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little 
land that is not tillable. The problems of poverty, 
crowding, great cities, and excessive wealth in few 
hands are practically unknown among them. The 
foreign commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 
with the building of a brig named after the town, 
and was continued successfully for a hundred 
years. At Wilmington there has always been 
a strong manufacturing interest, beginning with 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 227 

the famous colonial flour mills at the falls of 
the Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry at 
Newport on the Christina. With the Brandywine 
so admirably suited to the water-power machinery 
of those days and the Christina deep enough for 
the ships, Wilmington seemed in colonial times to 
possess an ideal combination of advantages for 
manufacturing and commerce. The flour mills 
were followed in 1802 by the Du Pont Powder 
Works, which are known all over the world, and 
which furnished powder for all American wars 
since the Revolution, for the Crimean War in 
Europe, and for the Allies in the Great War. 

"From the hills of Brandywine to the sands 
of Sussex" is an expression the people of Dela- 
ware use to indicate the whole length of their 
little State. The beautiful cluster of hills at the 
northern end dropping into park-like pastures 
along the shores of the rippling Red Clay and 
White Clay creeks which form the deep Chris- 
tina with its border of green reedy marshes, is in 
striking contrast to the wild waste of sands at 
Cape Henlopen. Yet in one way the Brandy- 
wine Hills are closely connected with those sands, 
for from these very hills have been quarried the 
hard rocks for the great breakwater at the Cape, 



228 THE QUAKER COLONIES 

behind which the fleets of merchant vessels take 
refuge in storms. 

The great sand dunes behind the lighthouse at 
the cape have their equal nowhere else on the 
coast. Blown by the ocean winds, the dunes work 
inland, overwhelming a pine forest to the tree 
tops and filling swamps in their course. The 
beach is strewn with every type of wreckage of 
man's vain attempts to conquer the sea. The 
Life Saving Service men have strange tales to tell 
and show their collections of coins found along 
the sand. The old pilots live snugly in their neat 
houses in Pilot Row, waiting their turns to take 
the great ships up through the shoals and sands 
which were so baffling to Henry Hudson and his 
mate one hot August day of the year 1609. 

The Indians of the northern part of Delaware 
are said to have been mostly Minquas who lived 
along the Christiana and Brandywine, and are 
supposed to have had a fort on Iron Hill. The 
rest of the State was inhabited by the Nanticokes, 
who extended their habitations far down the 
peninsula, where a river is named after them. 
They were a division or clan of the Delawares or 
Leni Lenapes. In the early days they gave some 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 229 

trouble; but shortly before the Revolution all left 
the peninsula in strange and dramatic fashion. 
Digging up the bones of their dead chiefs in 1748, 
they bore them away to new abodes in the Wyo- 
ming Valley of Pennsylvania. Some appear to have 
traveled by land up the Delaware to the Lehigh, 
which they followed to its source not far from the 
Wyoming Valley. Others went in canoes, starting 
far down the peninsula at the Nanticoke River 
and following along the wild shore of the Chesa- 
peake to the Susquehanna, up which they went 
by its eastern branch straight into the Wyoming 
Valley. It was a grand canoe trip — a weird pro- 
cession of tawny, black-haired fellows swinging 
their paddles day after day, with their freight of 
ancient bones, leaving the sunny fishing grounds 
of the Nanticoke and the Choptank to seek a 
refuge from the detested white man in the cold 
mountains of Pennsylvania. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

A LARGE part of the material for the early history of 
Pennsylvania is contained of course in the writings and 
papers of the founder. The Life of William Penn by 
S. M. Janney (1852) is perhaps the most trustworthy 
of the older biographies but it is a dull book. A biog- 
raphy written with a modern point of view is The True 
William Penn by Sydney G. Fisher (1900). Mrs. Col- 
quhoun Grant, a descendant of Penn, has published 
a book with the title Quaker and Courtier y the Life and 
Work of William Penn (1907). The manuscript papers 
of Penn now in the possession of the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania, together with much new material gath- 
ered in England, are soon to be published under the able 
editorship of Albert Cook Myers. 

There is a vast literature on the history of Quakerism. 
The Journal of George Fox (1694), Penn's Brief Account 
of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers 
(1695), and Robert Barclay's Apology for the True 
Christian Divinity (1678) are of first importance for the 
study of the rise of the Society of Friends. Among the 
older histories are J. J. Gurney's Observations on the 
Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends (1824), 
James Bowden's History of the Society of Friends in 
America, 2 vols. (1850-54), and S. M. Janney 's History 
of the Religious Society of Friends, 4 vols. (1860-67). 

231 



232 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Two recent histories are of great value: W. C. Braith- 
waite, The Beginnings of Quakerism (1912) and Rufus 
M. Jones, Tiie Quakers in the American Colonies (1911). 
Among the older histories of Penn's province are 
The History of Pennsylvania in North America, 2 vols, 
(1797-98), written by Robert Proud from the Quaker 
point of view and of great value because of the quota- 
tions from original documents and letters, and History 
of Pennsylvania from its Discovery by Europeans to 
the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (1829) by T. F. 
Gordon, largely an epitome of the debates of the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly which recorded in its minutes in 
fascinating old-fashioned English the whole history of 
the province from year to year. Franklin's Historical 
Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsyl- 
vania from its Origin (1759) is a storehouse of informa- 
tion about the history of the province in the French and 
Indian wars. Much of the history of the province is to 
be found in the letters of Penn, Franklin, Logan, and 
Lloyd, and in such collections as Samuel Hazard's 
Register of Pennsylvania, 16 vols. (1828-36), Colonial 
Records, 16 vols. (1851-53), and Pennsylvania Archives 
(1874-). A vast amount of material is scattered in 
pamphlets, in files of colonial newspapers like the 
Pennsylvania Gazette, in the publications of the Histori- 
cal Society of Pennsylvania, and in the Pennsylvania 
Magazine of History and Biography (1877-). Recent 
histories of the province have been written by Isaac 
Sharpless, History of Quaker Government in Pennsyl- 
vania, 2 vols. (1898-99), and by Sydney G. Fisher, The 
Making of Pennsylvania (1896) and Pennsylvania, 
Colony and Commonwealth (1897). A scholarly History 
of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania has been 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 233 

published by William R. Shepherd in the Columbia 
University Studies (1896) and the Relations of Pennsyl- 
vania with the British Government, 1696-1765 (1912) 
have been traced with painstaking care by Winfred 
T. Root. 

Concerning the racial and religious elements in Penn- 
sylvania the following books contribute much valuable 
information: A. B. Faust, The German Element in the 
United States, 2 vols. (1909); A. C. Myers, Immigration 
of the Irish Quakers into Penny slvania, 1682-1750 
(1902); S. W. Pennypacker, Settlement of Germantown, 
Pennsylvania, and the Beginning of German Immigration 
to North America (1899); J. F. Sachse, The German 
Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, 169^-1708 (1895), 
and The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1800, 
2 vols. (1899-1900); L. O. Kuhns, The German and 
Stoiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania (1901); H. J. 
Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America (1915); T. A. Glenn, 
Merion in the Welsh Trad (1896). 

The older histories of New Jersey, like those of Penn- 
sylvania, contain valuable original material not found 
elsewhere. Among these Samuel Smith's The History 
of the Colony of Nova Ccesaria, or New Jersey (1765) 
should have first place. E. B. O'Callaghan's History of 
New Netherland, 2 vols. (1846), and J. R. Brodhead's 
History of the State of New York, 2 vols. (1853, 1871) 
contain also information about the Jerseys under Dutch 
rule. Other important works are: W. A. Whitehead's 
East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments (New Jer- 
sey Historical Society Collections, vol. i, 1875), and "The 
English in East and West Jersey" in Winsor's Narrative 
and Critical History of America, vol. iii, L. Q. C. Elmer's 
The Constitution and Government of the Province and 



234 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

State of New Jersey (New Jersey Historical Society Col- 
lections, vols. Ill and vii, 1849 and 1872) . Special studies 
have been made by Austin Scott, Influence of the Pro- 
prietors in the Founding of New Jersey (1885), and by 
H. S. Cooley, Study of Slavery in New Jersey (1896), both 
in the Johns Hopkins University Studies; also by E. P. 
Tanner, The Province of New Jersey (1908) and by E. J. 
Fisher, New Jersey as a Royal Province, 1738-1776 
(1911) in the Columbia University Studies. Several 
county histories yield excellent material concerning the 
life and times of the colonists, notably Isaac Mickle's 
Reminiscences of Old Gloucester (1845) and L. T. 
Stevens's The History of Cape May County (1897) which 
are real histories written in scholarly fashion and not 
to be confused with the vulgar county histories gotten 
up to sell. 

The Dutch and Swedish occupation of the lands 
bordering on the Delaware may be followed in the 
following histories: Benjamin Ferris, A History of the 
Original Settlements of the Delaware (1846); Francis 
Vincent, A History of the State of Delaware (1870) ; J. T. 
Scharf, History of Delaware, 1609-1888, 2 vols. (1888); 
Karl K. S. Sprinchorn, Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia 
(1878), translated in the Pennsylvania Magazine of 
History and Biography, vols, vii and viii. In volume iv 
of Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America is 
a chapter contributed by G. B. Keen on "New Sweden, 
or The Swedes on the Delaware." The most recent 
minute work on the subject is The Swedish Settlements 
on the Delaware, 2 vols. (1911) by Amandus Johnson. 



INDEX 



Academy of Natural Sciences 

founded, 60 
Adams, John, on Quaker feasts, 

31 
Agriculture, in Pennsylvania, 

25; in New Jersey, 156-58; on 

Cape May, 162; in Delaware, 

226 
Albany Treaty (1754), 88 
American Philosophical Society, 

58 
Andros, Sir Edmund, Governor 

of New York, 134 
Anne, Queen, colonial policy 

under, 44; Penn and, 74 
Appoquinimink, Dutch at, 204 
Aquidneck (Rhode Island), 

Quakers in, 7 
Archdale, John, Governor of 

North Carolina, 7 
Armstrong, Colonel John, 104- 

105 
Attique, see Kittanning 

Baltimore, Lord, 11; boundary 
dispute with Penn, 19, 24, 224 

Baptists in Pennsylvania, 36 

Baxclay, Robert, Governor of 
East Jersey, 173; Apology for 
the True Christian Divinity, 
173 

Bartram, John, botanist, 57, 58 

Bartram's Garden, Swedes build 
fort near, 208 

Bates, William, Quaker immi- 
grant, 139 

Beekman, Dutch Governor in 
Delaware, 215 



Beesley, Sketch of Cape May, 
quoted, 146 (note) 

Belmont, country seat near Phila- 
delphia, 33 

Berkeley, Lord, Quakers buy 
West Jersey from, 6, 131; and 
New Jersey, 9, 129, 169 

Berwyn, Welsh origin of name, 
37 

Black Minqua Indians (Eries), 
207 ; see also Minqua Indians 

Blackhead, pirate, 208 

Blackwell, Captain John, Gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania, 68-69 

Blue Anchor, tavern in Phila- 
delphia, 28 

Blue Bell tavern, 208 

Bouquet, Colonel Henry, expedi- 
tion, 109, 111 

Bowden, James, History of the 
Friends in America, cited, 
5 (note) 

Braddock, General Edward, 95; 
defeat, 97-98 

Bridgeton (N. J.), 148 

Bridlington, old name for Bur- 
lington (N. J.), 136 

Bright, John, 61 

Brinser Brethren in Pennsyl- 
vania, 42 

Brown, General Jacob, 61, 96 

Brown's Mills (N. J.), 147 

Bryn Mawr, Welsh origin of 
name, 37 

Bucks County (Penn.), Quakers 
in, 55 

Budden, Captain, brings chimes 
from England, 30 



235 



236 



INDEX 



Burlington (N. J.), 26, 136, 137, 
192; capital of West Jersey, 
143, 183; Quakers at, 180 

Burr, Aaron, 190 

Bushy Run, Bouquet's victory 
at. 111 

Bute, Earl of, 186 

Byllinge, Edward, 131, 132, 133 

Cadwalader, Welsh name in 

Pennsylvania, 38 
Cadwalader, Thomas, 59 
Camden (N. J.), 137-38; Walt 

Whitman at, 152 
Canada, English gain possession 

of, 107, 108 
CarHsle (PennO,48 
Carolinas, proprietorship in, 12; 

royal government in, 122-23; 

see also North Carolina 
Carr, Sir Robert, 215 
Carteret, Sir George, and New 

Jersey, 9, 129, 169-70; death 

(1680), 172 
Carteret, Philip, Governor of 

East Jersey, 170, 171 
Casimir, Fort, 210, 212 
Chambersburg (Penn.), 48 
Charles II, and Penn, 9, 63; 

seizes Dutch possessions in 

America, 129, 169 
Cherry Island, 209 
Chester (Penn.), name of Upland 

changed to, 18; Penn, at, 19; 

Swedes settle near, 206, 218 
Chew, Benjamin, Chief Justice, 

32 
Child, Mrs. Maria, The Youthful 

Emigrant, 142 
Christina, Swedish settlement, 

218; see also Christinaham 
Chistina, Fort, 209 
Christinaham, 202, 209; see also 

Christina 
Church of England in Penn- 
sylvania, 36, 38-39, 48, 52, 

73-74, 119, 120 
Churches, Christ Church in 

Philadelphia, 30; in West 



Jersey, 149; Quaker meeting 
houses in New Jersey, 151-52, 
160-61 ; in Delaware, 223-24 

Clay, Annals of the Swedes, cited, 
224 (note) 

Cliveden, country seat near Phila- 
delphia, 33 

Coach and Horses, Philadelphia 
tavern, 33 

Coale, Josiah, 5 

Cohansey Bridge (Bridgeton), 
148 

Coleman, Henry, 217 

Collins, Stephen, entertains John 
Adams, 31 

Collinson, Peter, 58 

Commerce, Pennsylvania, 25- 
26, 28-29; of Cape May, 
163 

Conestoga, Indians at, 111; 
massacre at, 112 

Connecticut, boundary dispute 
with Pennsylvania, 83-84; 
Cape May trades with, 163 

Cooper's Ferry (Camden), 137; 
see also Camden 

Cope, Edward, 59 

Cornbury, Edward Hyde, Vis- 
count, Governor of New Jer- 
sey, 151, 183-85 

Cornell, Ezra, 59 

Corson family of Cape May, 1 
160 j 

Cress family of Cape May, 
160 

Cumberland, Fort, Braddock 
retreats to, 98 

Cumberland Valley, Scotch-Irish 
in, 48 

Dalton, John, 59 

Deal or Hoerekill, original names 
of Sussex County (Del.), 224 
(note) 

Delaware, Penn given control of, 
10, 13; suggestion that Church 
of England be given, 39; with- 
draws from Pennsylvania, 69, 
225; Dutch and Swedes in. 



INDEX 



237 



Delaware — Continued 

197 et seq.\ English conquest, 
215 et seq.; nationalities in, 
219-21; home rule for, 225; 
"hundreds," 225; adopts Na- 
tional Constitution, 225; agri- 
culture, 226; topography, 227- 
228; Indians of, 229; bibli- 
ography, 234 

Delaware Indians, 90, 99, 103, 
229; and Walking Purchase, 
87-88 

Delaware River navigation, 165- 
166 

Depellians in Pennsylvania, 42 

De Vries, David, 203; describes 
Pine Barrens, 144-45 

Dickinson, John, Farmer s Let- 
ters, 61, 120; Colonel, 96; 
opposes change to royal gov- 
ernment, 120-21 

Drummond, Lord, 173 

Duffrin Mawr (Great Valley), 
Welsh name for Chester Val- 
ley, 37 

Du Pont Powder Works, 227 

Duquesne, Fort (Pittsburgh), 
97-98, 106-07 

Dutch, on the Delaware, 126, 
197 et seq. ; in New Jersey, 154; 
in East Jersey, 168, 176 ; names, 
219 (note) 

Dutch Reformed Church estab- 
lishes college, 190 

Dyer, Mary, 4 

East Jersey, location, 127-28, 
130; town system of govern- 
ment, 155; topography, 168; 
government under Carteret, 
171; New Englanders rebel 
against, 171-72; sold to Quak- 
ers, 172; population, 175; char- 
acter of people, 176-77; "The 
Revolution," 178; united to 
West Jersey, 179, 180 et seq. ; 
see also New Jersey, West 
Jersey 

Edridge, John, 133 



Education in New Jersey, 188- 

190 
Edwards, Jonathan, 190 
Egg Island, 162 
Elfsborg, Fort, 210; see also Nya 

Elfsborg 
Ehzabeth (N. J.), 171; founded, 

170; college at, 188 
Elsinboro (N. J.), 206 
English in Delaware, 204-05, 

215 et seq.; see also Puritans 
Esopus (N. Y.), Beekman sheriff 

of, 215 
Estaugh, Quaker preacher, 142 

Fairfax, Lord, 186 

Fairfield (N. J.), 149 

Fenwick, John, 131, 132, 133 

Fletcher, Benjamin, Governor of 
New York, 70 

Ford, Philip, manager of Penn's 
estate, 78-79 

Fox, George, project of estab- 
lishing colony, 4-6; travels 
in America, 131, 137 

Frankford (Penn.), Swedes at, 
218 

Franklin, Benjamin, 30, 77, 185 ; 
estimate of population, 52; 
scientific discoveries, 56-57; 
opinion of Thomas Penn, 82; 
drafts militia law, 100; com- 
mands militia, 101-02; letter 
to Norris, 106; pamphlet 
against the Paxtons, 113-14; 
negotiates with Scotch-Irish, 
116; succeeds in taxing pro- 
prietary lands, 118; advocate 
of change to royal government, 
121, 122; sent as agent to 
England, 123-24 

Franklin, William, Governor of 
New Jersey, 153, 185-86 

Franklin Institute, 60 

French, explorations of 1682, 20- 
21; and Indians, 86; see also 
French and Indian War; lose 
empire in America, 107; in 
Delaware, 219-20 



238 



INDEX 



French and Indian War, 86 et 

seq., 191 
Fuller, William, 6 

Galloway, Joseph, 121, 122, 
123 

Galloway (N. J.), Quaker meet- 
ing house at, 160 

George III, 122 

Germans, in Pennsylvania, 26, 
41-44; "the sects," 42-44; 
"church people," 44; and 
Scotch-Irish, 48; sectionalism 
of, 51; Quakers and, 52-53; 
expansion, 55; and Indians, 
86; on making Pennsylvania 
Crown colony, 119; bibli- 
ography, 233 

Germantown (Penn.), Scotch- 
Irish at, 116-17 

Gettysburg (Penn.), 48 

Gibson's Point, Swedish fort 
near, 208 

Gichtelians in Pennsylvania, 42 

Girard, Stephen, 26 

Gnadenhiitten, massacre at, 99; 
second attack on, 102 

Godfrey, Thomas, 58 

Gothenborg, Fort, 205 

Grant, U. S., proposes that 
Quakers take charge of Indian 
affairs, 89 

Great Christopher (ship), 211 

Great Egg (N. J.), Quaker meet- 
ing house at, 161 

Great Egg Harbor, 162 

Greene, General Nathanael, 60- 
61,96 

Greenwich (N. J.), 148; Quaker 
meeting house in, 152 

Gustavus Adolphus, 200-01 

Gwynedd, Welsh origin of name, 
37 

Haddon, Elizabeth, 142 
Haddon, John, 142 
Haddonfield (N. J.), 142 
Half Moon (ship), 198 
Harris, John, Indian trader, 54 



Harrisburg (Penn.), founded, 54 

Haverford, Welsh origin of name, 
37 

Hayes, Isaac Israel, Arctic ex- 
plorer, 60 

Hicksites, see Quakers 

Hinoyossa, Alexander d', 215 

Hoerekill or Deal, original name 
of Sussex County (Del.), 224 
(note) 

"Holy Experiment," 15, 27, 63 

Hopkins, Johns, 59 

Hopkinson, friend of Franklin, 
57 

Hudson, Henry, 198, 228 

Hudson River, exploration of, 
198-99 

Huguenots in East Jersey, 176 

Huron Indians, 99 

Importance of the British Plan- 
tations in America cited, 86- 
87 

Indians, and Quakers, 20, 23, 86, 
133-34, 140-41; and Scotch- 
Irish, 49, 50, 86; Thomas 
Penn and, 83; Albany treaty, 
88-89; and Dutch, 168-69; 
Swedes buy land from, 206: 
trade with, 209; of Delaware, 
229; see also French and In- 
dian War, names of tribes 

Inspired (German sect) in Penn- 
sylvania, 42 

Irving, Washington, History of 
New York, 212; quoted, 212- 
213 

James II, Quaker policy, 36, 65; 
Penn and, 63-64, 67; and 
Covenanters, 175; joins New 
England, New York, and New 
Jersey, 177 

Jameson, J, F., Willem Usselinx, 
cited, 200 (note) 

Jaquette, family of Delaware, 
200 

Jefferson, Thomas, 58 

Jennings, Samuel, 184 



INDEX 



Jones, R. M., The Quakers in the 

American Colonies, cited, 7 

(note) 
Jones, Sir William, 134, 135 
Jones's, original name of Kent 

County (Del), 224 (note) 

Kane, Elisha Kent, Arctic ex- 
plorer, 60 
Keith, George, 69 
Kelley, American Yachts, cited, 

166 (note) 
Kent (ship), 136 
Kent County (Del.), 224 
Kidd, Captain William, 166 
Kieft, William, Governor of New 

Netherland, 203 
King Solomon (ship) , 21 1 
Kingsessing, Swedish settlement, 

218 
Kinnersley, friend of Franklin, 

57 
Kittanning, attack on, 104- 

105 
"Knickerbocker, Diedrich, "212 
Konigsmarke (the Long Finn), 

217 

Labadists in Pennsylvania, 42 

Lake wood (N. J.), 147 

Lamb, Charles, quoted, 152 

Lamberton, George, 161, 204 

Lancaster (Penn.), rifles manu- 
factured in, 50 

Lancaster County (Penn.), Ger- 
mans in, 42, 43, 55 

Lancaster Road, 53, 54 

Landsdowne, seat of one of the 
Penn family, 34 

La Salle, Rene-Robert Cavelier, 
Sieur de, 20-21 

Lawrie, Gawen, 132, 133 

Learning, Aaron, 164 

Leaming family of Cape May, 
160 

Lee, "Light Horse" Harry, 190 

Little Egg Harbor, 162 

Llovd, David, 38, 77 

Llovd, Thomas, 67, 68, 69 



Logstown, Indian headquarters 

at, 104 
Long-a-coming (Berlin), 150 
Long Island, Quakers on, 7, 19, 

140, 160; Cape May trades 

with, 163; Puritans in East 

Jersey from, 170 
Louisiana claimed for France, 20 
Lucas, Nicholas, 132, 133 
Ludlam, family of Cape May, 

160 
Lumbering in New Jersey, 155- 

156 
Lutheran Church, 44 

Madison, James, 190 

Maine, proprietorship in, 12 

Marcus Hook, Swedish settle- 
ment, 218; Finns at, 219 

Markham, William, Governor of 
Delaware, 69; Governor of 
Pennsylvania, 70 

Markham's Frame, new con- 
stitution of Pennsylvania, 70 

Maryland, proprietorship in, 12; 
Penn visits, 19; boundary 
dispute with Pennsylvania, 
83, 84; and French and Indian 
War, 91, 95; Baltimore's ambi- 
tion for, 224 

Massachusetts, law against 
Quakers in, 4; royal govern- 
ment in, 122-23; English settle, 
197-98 

May, Cape, settlement of, 159- 
167 

Mennonites, 43 

Meredith, Welsh name in Penn- 
sylvania, 38 

Merion, Welsh origin of name, 
37 

Middletown (N. J.), 169, 171 

Mifflin, General Thomas, 61, 96 

Mingo Indians, 97 

Minqua Indians, 229; see also 
Black Minqua, White Minqua 

Minuit, Peter, leads Swedish 
expedition, 201, 202; buried 
at Wilmington, 223 



240 



INDEX 



Mississippi River, French explor- 
ers on, 20 

Model of the Government of the 
Province of East Jersey in 
America, 175 

Moravians and war, 102 

Morris, Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania, 91, 92 

Morris, Lewis, 184; Governor of 
New Jersey, 185 

Morris, Robert, 26 

Mountain Men in Pennsylvania, 
42 

Murray, Lindley, 59 

Myers, Narratives of Early Penn- 
sylvania, West Jersey, and 
Delaware, cited, 132 (note), 
207 (note), 233 

Myrtilla (ship), 30 

Nancy (sloop), 165 
Nanticoke Indians, 229 
Nassau, Fort, 200, 202, 203, 205, 

210 
Nassau Hall at Princeton (Prince- 
ton University), 189; see also 

Princeton 
New Amstel (New Castle), 213, 

215; see also New Castle 
New Amsterdam, British take 

possession of, 215 
New Beverly, old name for Bur- 
lington (N. J.), 136 
New Born (German sect), in 

Pennsylvania, 42 
New Castle, original name for 

New Castle County (Del.), 224 

(note) 
New Castle (Del), 26, 210, 213, 218 
New Castle County (Del.), 224 
New England, Puritans in East 

Jersey from, 169, 170-71, 180; 

joined to New York and New 

Jersev, 177 
New England Town (N. J.), 149 
New Hampshire, proprietorship 

in, 12 
New Haven, settlers on Cape 

May from, 161 



New Jersey, Penn and, 10; pro- 
prietorship in. 12; religious 
liberty in, 15; royal govern- 
ment, 122-23; beginnings of, 
125 et seq. ; and the Puritans, 
126; topography, 128-29, 158- 
159; origin of name, 129; 
granted to Berkeley and Car- 
teret, 129; roads, 150; social 
distinctions, 153-54; rivers, 
158-59; government, 181-83; 
struggle between proprietors 
and people, 183-85 ; population, 
186-87; education, 188-90; 
and French and Indian War, 
190-91; life in, 191-96; books 
and newspapers, 1 92-93 ; 
houses, 193; commerce, 193- 
194; shipbuilding, 194-95; 
whaling industrj^ 195-96; 
bibliography^ 233-34; see also 
East Jersey, West Jersey 

New Jersey, College of (Prince- 
ton University), 176; see also 
Princeton University 

New Mooners, 42 

New Sweden, 202 

New York, and Quakers, 4, 160; 
Penn travels in, 18; contribu- 
tion in French and Indian 
War, 91; and New Jersey, 134- 
135, 177-78 

Newark (N. J.), 171, 180; college 
moved to, 188 

Newton (N. J.), 137, 138 

Nicolls, Colonel Richard, 169 

Norris, Isaac, 79, 106, 121 

North Carolina, Quakers in, 7; 
Germans in, 43 

Nova Csesarea (New Jersey), 
125, 129 

Nya Elfsborg, Fort (Elsinboro), 
206; see also Elfsborg, Fort 

Odessa, capital of Delaware 

moved to, 215 
Ogg, F. A., The Old Northwest, 

cited, 109 (note) 
Ojibway Indians, 99 



INDEX 



241 



Old Pensauken Sound, 129 
Oplandt, Fort, 199, 200, 202 
Ottawa Indians, 99 
Oxenstierna, Swedish Chancel- 
lor, 201 

Passyunk, Swedish settlement, 
218 

Pastorius, Mennonite leader, 21, 
43 

Pavonia, Dutch at, 168-69, 176 

"PaxtonBoys," 112-13 

Penllyn, Welsh origin of name, 
37 

Penn, John, son of Thomas, 85 

Penn, John, son of William, 81, 
85 

Penn, Richard, son of William, 
81,85^ 

Penn, Thomas, son of William, 
81-85, 90, 94 

Penn, William, joins Quakers, 
1-2; and Quaker colony pro- 
ject, 6; becomes trustee of 
Quaker refuge, 6-7; early life, 
8; granted domain in America, 
9-10; charter, 10-11, 41, 181; 
forms colony, 13 et seq.; in 
America, 17 et seq.; and 
Philadelphia, 18; treaty with 
Indians, 22-23; returns to 
England, 24; missionary tours 
in Germany, 41; in England, 
63-70; and James II, 64-65, 
67; authority suspended, 69; 
province restored, 70; returns 
to Pennsylvania, 70-71; trav- 
els in America, 71; sails again 
for England, 72, 73; life in 
England, 74, 78, 174; and Ford, 
78-79; in prison, 79; last 
years, 80; death (1718), 81; 
and Indians, 88, 89; decides 
contention over West Jersey, 
132, 133; Concessions and 
Agreements, 135; buys East 
Jersey, 172; plans sale of po- 
litical power in Pennsylvania, 
183; and Delaware, 197, 217, 
i6 



219, 224; opinion of the 
Swedes, 204; bibliography, 231 

Penn, Mrs. William, as proprie- 
tor of Pennsylvania, 81 

Pennsbury, country seat of Wil- 
liam Penn, 71 

Pennsylvania, as proprietorship, 
11 et seq.; government, IS- 
IS, 26, 55, 67, 72-73, 75-78; 
population, 36 et seq.; during 
Penn's absence, 6G; part in 
French and Indian War, 86 
et seq.; Indian massacres, 99; 
Quaker militia law, 100-01; 
builds chain of forts, 102; 
party strife, 105-06; decline 
of Quaker government, 108 
et seq.; proposal to make 
Crown colony of, 118-24; 
bibliography, 232-33 

Pennsylvania Castle, country 
seat of John Penn, 85 

Pennsylvania Railroad, 54 

Pennsylvania, University of, 59 

Penny Pot Inn, 33 

Pennypack, Swedish settlement, 
218 

Perth, Earl of, 173 

Perth Amboy (N. J.), Scotch 
Covenanters at, 173, 180; 
Assembly meets at, 183 

Philadelphia, founded, 18, 19-20; 
houses, 22; life in, 25 et seq.; 
seat of commerce, 26, 27- 
29; love of good living, 31- 
32; country seats near, 33-34; 
streets, 34-35; medicine and 
science, 59-60; Indian raids, 
90; Braddock in, 98; Indians 
brought to, 104, 112; Scotch- 
Irish expedition to, 114-17; 
market for Cape May, 163; 
absorbs Swedish settlements, 
218 

Philadelphia College, see Penn- 
sylvania, University of 

Pine barrens of New Jersey, 
143-44 

Piscatawa (N. J.), 171 



242 



INDEX 



Pitt, Fort, 107, 109 

Pontiac's Conspiracy, 108-09 

Potawatomie Indians, 99 

Presbyterians, Quakers establish 
refuge for, 172, 173-74; estab- 
lish College of New Jersey 
(1747), 176 

Princeton University, 176, 188- 
190 

Printz, John, Governor of New 
Sweden, 205, 208 

Prison reform in Pennsylvania, 
15,56 

Proud, Robert, History of Penn- 
sylvania, 193 

Puritans and East Jersey, 169, 
171 

Quakers, William Penn joins, 1- 
2; origin, 2; principles, 2-3; 
"quietism" in Europe, 3; laws 
against, 4; temporary settle- 
ments in America, 6-7; and 
prison reform, 15; immi- 
gration to Pennsylvania, 19- 
20, 36; relations with Indians, 
20, 23, 86, 123-34, 140-41; 
type of immigrants, 22; char- 
acteristics, 26; number in 
Pennsylvania, 26-27; James 
II and, 36, Q5; opposed by 
Church of England, 38-40; and 
Scotch-Irish, 47, 113; in Phila- 
delphia, 48; Germans and, 52- 
53; number in 1750 in Penn- 
sylvania, 52; liberalism, 5Q', 
activities, 5Q; prominent men 
among, 56-61; and war, 95- 
96; as conscientious objectors, 
96; split into Hicksites and 
Orthodox, 97; try to end war 
(1756), 103-04; decline of 
Quaker government, 108 et 
seq.\ propose making Crown 
colony of Pennsylvania, 118 et 
seq.\ in West Jersey, 130 et 
seq., 180; found Salem, 133; 
lose control of West Jersey, 
150-51 ; meeting houses in New 



Jersey, 151-52; settle Cape 
May region, 160; buy East 
Jersey, 172; in Wilmington, 
220-21; bibliography, 231-32 

Queen's College (Rutgers Col- 
lege), 190, 

Quietism, 3 

Quietists in Pennsylvania, 42 

Radnor, Welsh origin of name, 

37 
" Redemptioners, " 44-45 
Reformed Church, 44 
Religion, religious liberty under 

Quakers, 15; see also Churches, 

names of denominations 
Revolution of 1688, Quakers and, 

66 
Revolutionary War, Penn family 

in, 13; Scotch-Irish and, 51 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 61 
Rhode Island, religious liberty, 

15; Cape May trades with, 

163; and National Constitu- 
tion, 225 
Rising, Swedish Governor of 

Delaware, 210 
Rittenhouse, David, astronomer, 

38, 57 
River Brethren in Pennsylvania, 

42 
Roads, Pennsylvania, 53-54; 

New Jersey, 150 
Ronsdorfer (German sect) in 

Pennsylvania, 42 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 190 
Rutgers College, 190 

St. Davids, Welsh origin of, 37 
St. George's, Dutch at, 204 
Salem (N. J.), 26, 133, 136, 137, 

143, 152, 176, 180, 205 
Sandhoeck (Sand Point), 210 
Scandinavians in New Jersey, 

161-62; see also Swedes 
Scheyichbi, Indian name for 

New Jersey, 125 
Schuylkill Valley, Germans in, 55 



INDEX 



243 



Schwenkf elders in Pennsylvania, 
42 

Scotch Covenanters, refuge in 
East Jersey for, 172-75, 180 

Scotch-Irish, in Pennsylvania, 
26, 40, 45 et seq. ; and Indians, 
49, 50, 86, 109 et seq. ; section- 
alism of, 51-52; on making 
Pennsylvania Crown colony, 
119; in Delaware, 220 

Scott, Sir Walter, cited, 174 

Seaville, Old Cedar Meeting at, 
161 

Separatists in Pennsylvania, 42 

Shawanoe Indians, 90, 99, 103 

Shields of Hull (ship), 142-43 

Shipley, William, 221, 222 

Shirley, General William, 95 

Shrewsbury (N. J.), 169, 171 

Six Nations, 54-55, 88, 90, 207 

Slavery, Quaker attitude to- 
ward, 56; in New Jersey, 156, 
158 

Smith, Provost of College of 
Philadelphia, estimates num- 
ber of Quakers, 52 

Smith, Samuel, 193; History of 
the Colony of Nova-Caesaria, 
or New Jersey, 192 

Smith, Rev. William, 39-40 

Spicer, Esther, funeral, 141 

Spicer, Jacob, 164 

Spicer family of Cape May, 160 

Spy, Commodore, 95 

Stenton, country seat near Phila- 
delphia, 33 

Stevens, L. T., History of Cape 
May County, cited, 166 (note) 

Stillwell family of Cape May, 
160 

Stockton, Richard, of New Jer- 
sey, 189 

Stoke Park, country seat of 
Thomas Penn, 85 

Stuyvesant, Peter, Governor of 
New Netherland, 209-10 

Susquehanna Indians, Quakers 
treat with, 5 

Sussex County (Del.), 224 



Swain, Jacocks, 165 

Swedes, in Pennsylvania, 18; 

in New Jersey, 126, 136; in 

Delaware, 197, 200 et seq.; 

anglicized names, 219 (note) 
Swedes boro, Swedish settlements 

around, 218 
Sydney, Algernon, 13 
Syng, friend of Franklin, 57 

Thirty Years' War, Gustavus 
Adolphus and, 201 

Tinicum, seat of Swedish govern- 
ment in Delaware, 205, 218; 
fort at, 210 

Townsend familv of Cape May, 
160 

Trent, William, 187 

Trenton (N. J.), 187-88 

Trinity, Fort, 210 

Tuckahoe (N. J.), Quaker meet- 
ing house at, 161 

Tunkers in Pennsylvania, 42 

Turner, Nathaniel, 161, 204 

Turner, Robert, 139 

Ulstermen, see Scotch-Irish 
Upland (Chester), Swedish vil- 
lage in Pennsylvania, 18, 218 
Usselinx, Willem, 200, 201 

Virginia, Germans in, 43; Scotch- 
Irish in, 47; boundary dis- 
pute, 83, 84; and French and 
Indian War, 91, 95; colony 
established (1607), 197 

Walking Purchase of 1737, 87 

Warner, Edmund, 133 

Washington, George, 97 

Weiser, Conrad, 90 

Welcome (ship), 17 

Welsh in Pennsylvania, 36-38; 

sectionalism of, 51 
West, Benjamin, 61 
West Jersey, Quaker refuge in, 

6-7, 130 e/ seq.; location, 127; 

Berkeley sells, 131; Quaker 



244 



INDEX 



West Jersey — Continued 

constitution, 135; type of 
settlers, 138 et seq.; forests, 
143-45, 147; cedar swamps, 
145-46; churches, 149; trans- 
portation, 149; united to East 
Jersey (1702), 150; county 
organization, 155; see also ^asi 
Jersey, New Jersey 

Westchester County (N. Y.), 
Quakers, in, 7 

Whisky Rebelhon, 49 

White Minqua Indians, 207 

Whitman, Walt, 152 

Whittier, J. G., 61 

Wicaco, village on site of Phila- 
delphia, 218, 223 

Wilcox, Joseph, 77 

William III, and Penn, 12, 69- 
70; and toleration, 36, 71; 
placed on throne, 66, 178 

William and Mary, College of, 
189 

William of Orange, see William 
III 

Willbg, Thomas, 221 

Willington (Wilmington), 221 

Wilmington (Del.), 26, 201, 
209; a Quaker town, 220-21; 



founding of, 221-22; customs of 
punishment, 222-23; churches, 
223-24; commerce, 226; manu- 
facturing, 226-27 

Woman in the Wilderness, So- 
ciety of, in Pennsylvania, 
42 

Woodbridge (N. J.), 171 

Woolman, John, Journal, 152, 
192 

Wynnewood, Welsh origin of 
name, 37 

Wyoming Valley of Pennsyl- 
vania, Indians seek refuge i», 
229-30 

Yegon, Peter, 137 

York, Duke of, and William 
Penn, 9, 13, 64, 224; ascends 
throne as James II, 63; 
given Dutch possessions in 
America, 129, 169; and West 
Jersey, 134; and East Jersey, 
173; rule in Delaware, 217, 
21 9 ; 5ee also James II 

York (Penn.), 48 

Zion's Brueder in Pennsylvania; 

42 



AN OUTLINE OF THE PLAN OF 
THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA 




The fifty titles of the Series fall into eight topical sequences or groups, 
each with a dominant theme of its own — 



I. The Morning of America 
time: 1492-1763 

THE theme of the first sequence is the struggle of nations for the 
possession of the New World. The mariners of four European king- 
doms — Spain, Portugal, France, and England — are intent upon the 
discovery of a new route to Asia. They come upon the American continent 
which blocks the way. Spain plants colonies in the south, lured by gold. 
France, in pursuit of the fur trade, plants colonies in the north. Englishmen, 
in search of homes and of a wider freedom, occupy the Atlantic seaboard. 
These Englishmen come in time to need the land into which the French 
have penetrated by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and a 
mighty struggle between the two nations takes place in the wilderness, 
ending in the expulsion of the French. This sequence comprises ten volumes: 

I. THE RED man's CONTINENT, by EUsworth Huntington 
1. THE SPANISH CONQUERORS, by Irving Berdine Ric/iman 

3. ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS, by William Wood 

4. CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE, by William Bennett Munro 

5. PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTH, by Mary Johnston 

6. THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND, by Charks M. Jndrews 

7. DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON, by Maud Wilder Goodwih 

8. THE QUAKER COLONIES, by Sydney G. Fisher 

9. COLONIAL FOLKWAYS, by Charks M. Andrews 

10. THE CONQUEST OF NEW FRANCE, by George M. Wrong 



II. The Winning of Independence j 



time: 1763-1815 

The French peril has passed, and the great territory between the Alle- 
ghanies and the Mississippi is now open to the Englishmen on the seaboard, 
with no enemy to contest their right of way except the Indian. But the 
question arises whether these Englishmen in the New World shall submit 
to political dictation from the King and Parliament of England. To decide 
this question the War of the Revolution is fought; the Union is born: 
and the second war with England follows. Seven volumes: 

II. THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION, by Carl BeckcT 

!2. WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS, by GeoTge M. Wrong 

13. THE FATHERS OF THE CONSTITUTION, by Max Furrand 

14. WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Henry Jones Ford 

15. JEFFERSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Alkn JohnSOn 

16. JOHN MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION, by Edward S. Corwtn 

17. THE FIGHT FOR A FREE SEA, by Ralph D. Paine 

III. T/ie Vision of the West 

time: 1750-1890 

The theme of the third sequence is the American frontier — the conquest 
of the continent from the Alleghanies to the Pacific Ocean. The story covers 
nearly a century and a half, from the first crossing of the Alleghanies by 
the backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas (about 
1750) to the heyday of the cowboy on the Great Plains in the latter part 
of the nineteenth century. This is the marvelous tale of the greatest migra 
tions in history, told in nine volumes as follows: 

18. PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST, by Consiance Lindsay Skinnef 

19. THE OLD NORTHWEST, by Fvedevtc Austin Ogg 

20. THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON, by Frederic Austin Ogg 

21. THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, by Archer B. Hulbert 

22. ADVENTURERS OF OREGON, by Constance Lindsay Skinner 

23. THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS, by Herbert E. Bolton 

24. TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR, by Nathaniel IV. Stephenson 

25. THE FORTY-NINERS, by Stewart Edward White 

26. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER, by Emerson Hough 



IV, The Storm of Secession 
time: 1830-1876 

The curtain rises on the gathering storm of secession. The theme of the 
fourth sequence is the preservation of the Union, which carries with it the 
extermination of slavery. Six volumes as follows: 

27. THE COTTON KINGDOM, by JVUliam E. Dodd 

28. THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE, by Jesse Macy 

29. ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 

30. THE DAY OF THE CONFEDERACY, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 

31. CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR, by fVHUam Wood 

32. THE SEQUEL OF APPOMATTOX, by Walter Lynwood Fleming 

V. The Intellectual Life 

Two volumes follow on the higher national life, telling of the nation's great 
teachers and interpreters: 

22' THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN EDUCATION, by Edwin E. Slosson 

34. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE, by BHsS Perry 

VI. The Epic of Commerce and Industry 

The sixth sequence is devoted to the romance of industry and business, 
and the dominant theme is the transformation caused by the inflow of 
immigrants and the development and utilization of mechanics on a great 
scale. The long age of muscular power has passed, and the era of mechanical 
power has brought with it a new kind of civilization. Eight volumes: 

35. OUR FOREIGNERS, By Samuel P. Orth 

36. THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE, by Ralph D. Pawe 

37. THE AGE OF INVENTION, by Holland Thompson 

38. THE RAILROAD BUILDERS, by John Moody 

39. THE AGE OF BIG BUSINESS, by Burton J. HendrUk 

40. THE ARMIES OF LABOR, by Samuel p. Orth 

41. THE MASTERS OF CAPITAL, by John Moody 

42. THE NEW SOUTH, by Holland Thompson 



VII. The Era of IForld Power 

The seventh sequence carries on the story of government and diplomacy 
and political expansion from the Reconstruction (1876) to the present day, 
in six volumes: 

43. THE BOSS AND THE MACHINE, by Samuel P. Ofth 

44. THE CLEVELAND ERA, by Henry Jones Ford 

45. THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE, by Solon J. Buck 

46. THE PATH OF EMPIRE, by Carl Rus Sell Fish 

47. THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES, by Hurold Howlund 

48. wooDROw WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR, by Chorks SeymouT 

VIII. Our Neighbors 

Now to round out the story of the continent, the Hispanic peoples on ' 
the south and the Canadians on the north are taken up where they were 
dropped further back in the Series, and these peoples are followed down 
to the present day: 

49. THE CANADIAN DOMINION, by Oscar B. Skelton 

50. THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW vfov^hD^ by William R. Shepherd 

The Chronicles of America is thus a great synthesis, giving a new projec- 
tion and a new interpretation of American History. These narratives are 
works of real scholarship, for every one is written after an exhaustive 
examination of the sources. Many of them contain new facts; some of them 
— such as those by Howland, Seymour, and Hough — are founded on inti- 
mate personal knowledge. But the originality of the Series lies, not chiefly 
in new facts, but rather in new ideas and new combinations of old facts. 

The General Editor of the Series is Dr. Allen Johnson, Chairman of the I 
Department of History of Yale University, and the entire work has been ' 
planned, prepared, and published under the control of the Council's 
Committee on Publications of Yale University. 

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

143 ELM STREET, NEW HAVEN 
522 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



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